Cartel plus Capture
by CommanderBunnBunn
Summary: Team Improvise is shaken when one of their own is kidnapped by an enemy. T rating for adult language and moderate violence. Gen, casefic, whump. 8/9 chapters published.
1. The Grenadine and the Box

No one gets the drop on Jack Dalton. No one. Whoever set this up had been planning it for a while. Jack was known as a regular at the burger joint down the street from his apartment, which is why it was the last place he expected to be roofied. That was his first mistake, don't have patterns, don't be predictable. He couldn't help it, he'd missed the small town camaraderie he'd known growing up.

Los Angeles wasn't exactly small town, but the staff at the restaurant recognized him - the guy with the wrist cuf that ordered either a double cheeseburger or a chicken sandwich accompanied by "whatever domestic draft was tapped most recently," or a Jameson and with grenadine. The grenadine was the key to getting the drop on Jack. It was easy to switch out the simple bottle with one laced with rohypnol. Obviously the bad guys didn't care if some kid's Shirley Temple was spiked, that's just collateral damage easily slept off and never given a second thought. No one in the restaurant had even noticed the switcharoo or the bar patron who had done it when the bartender went to the back for a new box of swizzle sticks.

Jack fumbled the keys to the door lock outside his apartment. The Jameson should not have hit him that hard, he only had one drink. His assailant only needed him impaired, less able to fight back effectively. Jack became immediately suspicious of his condition when the front door started to wiggle in front of his eyes. He gripped the knob to steady the door that wasn't actually moving. He shoved the key into the lock aggressively, hoping to will away the dizziness and confusion trying to take him down. Once he stumbled through the threshold, he slammed and locked the door behind him, tossing his keys into the punch bowl on the kitchen bar. He missed his target by a significant distance, and his keys ended up in the garbage disposal in the sink. He felt an instinctive need to clear his apartment and went for his gun inside his jacket.

He slipped his hand inside the black leather jacket and forgot why he was reaching for his gun, he was at home. Home, keys and wallet go in the bowl, jacket on the coat rack. Thinking he must have been going for his wallet, he grabbed it and tossed it to the punch bowl…actually in the general area of the punch bowl, more like at the fridge where it bounced across the floor and under the dishwasher. Continuing his routine, he shrugged his restrictive jacket halfway down his biceps when his assailant seized this opportunity to grab Jack from behind. Jack struggled to fight back, but his arms were stuck inside his jacket and wrenched behind his back. Jack flung his shoulders forcefully from side to side, hoping to throw his captor off balance to escape, but he only managed to stumble backward into the other man. The assailant took a step back to further disorient Jack as he struggled frantically, swinging his arms trying to grab his captor. Jack roared in frustration and bucked backward, but he was no match for the other person. He grabbed Jack firmly around the chest with one large arm and held the other hand over Jack's mouth and nose. Jack squirmed and yelled, but his muffled screams were lost in the chloroform covered cloth as Jack sank into unconsciousness. Jack was dropped to the floor and relieved of his weapon still inside his jacket and also searched for additional weapons.

Jack's captor left through the fire escape and returned to the front door shortly after clad in dark blue coveralls with a dishwasher box on a dolly. Jack hadn't moved and hadn't been expected to, but was kicked in the ribs just to make sure. After getting no response, the captor hefted Jack up and over his shoulder, then dropped him carelessly into the empty box, arms pinned under his own body. After quick reconsideration, Jack was lifted back out and draped over the side of the wooden crate enclosed in the appliance box so Jack's hands and ankles could be zip tied and bound together before being sealed in the box and wheeled to the moving truck waiting outside.

Jack woke up to darkness; he blinked hard several times, squeezing his eyes shut tight and opening them wide just to make sure they were actually open. He waited a moment for them to adjust to the darkness but they never did. Jack was trained for this, but his head was pounding and his body was tight. Not tight, more like stuck. He tried to move his arms, but his hands were behind his back, bound tightly together. While attempting to pull his knees toward his chest, he noticed that his wrists were uncomfortably attached to his ankles which were also bound together. Ugh, blind and immobile. Aware of his handicaps, he needed to check his assets. He was on his side with his hands and arms stuck behind him, so he felt what was around him, jeans, t-shirt, ring, boots, no jacket, no watch, no armband. At least he wasn't naked.

Now the question was where. It was too dark to see anything, so he moved his head in a circular motion to feel what was nearby. Bumping into nothing, he rapped his knuckles onto whatever flat surface he was lying on. Wood, pressure treated, splintery. Like a warehouse shipping pallet. He rolled to his back and was stopped by a wall or something to his side. More of the same wood. He rolled in the other direction until he was stopped by the other side by his knees. Figuring his enclosure was about 3 feet by 3 feet, he laid on his back to find the top. He wasn't sure if he was alone, so instead of yelling to find the top of the box with an echo, he filled his lungs with air and blew as hard as he could. He didn't feel any of the wind come back his direction, so he had hope that this was some sort of open pen that he could knock over. Fairly certain that he was alone at this point, he called out quietly, "hello?" A little louder, "is anybody out there?" The acoustics confirmed that he was indeed inside a wooden box. Again.

With no light seeping in through the small cracks of the wooden box, he deduced that the wooden box was inside of something else and moving based on the occasional bumps and jostles. He focused on the outside noises, muffled by the box and the sound of his own heart beating in his ear. He listened for a while, narrowing down his mode of transport. Not a plane, no change in air pressure. Not a train, based on the shocks. It sounded like a diesel engine, not in traffic, but on an open highway.

For every puzzle he solved, he felt like two more were introduced. Why was he in a box and where was he going? Who took him? It was Mac's job to figure this stuff out, where was he? Was Mac ok? Jack's recollection of the last few hours was spotty at best. He wasn't with Mac, he hadn't seen him since the debrief the day before; he was alone. Why was he having so much trouble remembering? He remembered doing some laundry and having some lunch, but everything after that was fuzzy. He wasn't even sure what day it was anymore much less how long he'd been out. Regardless of any of that, he was a sitting duck. It was time to take action.

Jack pulled his ring off and pushed it halfway down his index finger, scraping the more jagged parts of his gaudy accessory against the zip tie holding his wrists together. It wouldn't be a quick process, but any attempt was better than nothing. He figured if he could score it enough with the ring, maybe he would be able to break it eventually.

The passage of time was impossible to measure in the silent darkness, only quantified by the number of times he scraped the ring against the plastic binding his wrists before his hand cramped and he had to stop to stretch his fingers out. He repeated that cycle at 8 times before he was finally able to break the zip tie. With a triumphant yelp, he unfolded himself into a seated position. Jack stretched his back out with a deep groan and extended his arms above his head until his knuckles made contact with the top of the box. He pushed on the wood to see how secure the lid was, confirming then that he was stuck a little while longer.

Jack wasn't quite sure what his escape plan was once he got his hands free, but he needed to consider his status with now functioning arms into his plan. Plan A) free his ankles and kick his way out of the box, then fight his way to freedom. Plan B) if he runs out of time for either part of plan B, hide in the box and then fight his way out using the element of surprise.

He scratched and picked at the plastic binding his ankles, but the truck stopped for longer than it had yet since he'd been awake. He worked faster at the zip tie, but wasn't able to break it before he heard a metal rollup door open. Jack laid back down in the box on his side with his thumbs looped into the plastic fastened around his ankles.

He closed his eyes and let his head droop to the floor when he heard someone start to pry the lid off. Two sets of arms grabbed him by the armpits and pulled him from the box. He listened carefully, trying to count voices and footsteps to figure out how many he was up against. Four, maybe 5? Jack's eyes snapped open and he sprung up from the ground, throwing punches at the nearest person. He knocked the first one out instantly by breaking is nose with a punch. The second with a headbutt to the face, but without the use of his legs, Jack was easily knocked to the ground from behind. He rolled to his back and kicked the next encroaching assailant in the stomach. Whatever they had planned for him, he wasn't going without a fight. He effectively defeated 3 of the 5, but the 4th pulled back the hammer on his gun, a sound well known to Jack. That guy was definitely not within kicking distance, so Jack put his hands out to his side in surrender.

Footsteps echoed from behind Jack, a slow cadence accompanied by a slow clap. "This is why you are the bodyguard."

He knew the voice before the face even came into view, "El Noche."


	2. The Possum and the Dummy Email

"I've doubled the bounty on your boy's head, and we still don't have him. I believe you are a significant factor in that." El Noche explained to Jack.

"Are you campaigning to be president of the Jack Dalton Fan Club? 'Cause I've got no say in that. There's an election and you've got to make quorum-"

"Shut up!" Sancola snapped.

Judging by the frustration of the drug kingpin and the fact that Jack was still alive, he assumed that they still hadn't gotten their hands on Mac, and Jack was about to become leverage...or bait...or a human sacrifice to prove a point. None of those options worked for Jack. Escape was the only solution. Jack looked around the room, up at the ceiling, checking for all points of entry or tools for escape. Goon number 4 kept his gun aimed at Jack's head as the injured three shook off their defeat as they got back up, while Goon number 5 approached with a set of shackles and chains.

Jack would never tire of trying to throw people off by talking, "Hey man, my S & M days are long past, and you're totally not my type. I prefer nice tits and an ass that tastes like french vanilla ice cream." He flashed a cheeky grin as he pantomimed cupping a pair of butt cheeks.

"Shut him up!" El Noche yelled in frustration.

Fully expecting duct tape or a gag, Jack was surprised to see the chloroform and felt a little dejavu. Was that how they got him there? These gangsters were going old school. With a henchman on each arm and one at his feet, Jack was proud that four men were needed to subdue him. The fourth held the rag to Jack's face as the bossman observed with a smirk. Attempting a fake out for the second time in 10 minutes, Jack screamed and struggled against his attackers for show, but refused to inhale and went limp hoping his playing possum would fool them. It worked for a moment, but Sancola piped up in anger, yelling commands in Spanish as two guys stood to hold Jack upright. His chin rested against his chest as he allowed his limbs to dangle freely. Then El Noche grabbed him from behind, yanking Jack's head back by his hair, breathing in his ear. Jack's arms instinctively tensed, giving away his ruse, and the drug lord slammed the cloth against Jack's face until he was absolutely sure he was out.

Phoenix-the next morning.

Mitch was a low level IT guy at the Phoenix. He frequently got to do cool things like the people with more seniority, but he also got stuck with the most menial tasks. With using a think tank as their cover, the Phoenix had a dummy email address so that people could send in their requests for jobs or quotes for pricing. Someone had to go through those emails and send the rejection replies, "sorry, due to heavy caseloads and backlogs, we cannot accommodate your request for service at this time." Or whatever, depending on the request. Sometimes they'd actually find interesting desperate pleas from people begging for help solving a problem, they'd actually picked up a few kidnapping and ransom cases through that dummy email, but they fixed the problem without actually letting the victim's family know they were involved at all. Mitch was reading through the emails like he did every morning riding low in his chair, running his fingers through his dark brown curls, bored with the monotony of the ridiculous requests received.

One email caught his attention. It was addressed to MacGyver. The majority of the emails were addressed to no one in particular, and the only way to know of an asset by the name of MacGyver (either one of them) was to have encountered or worked in some capacity with them. Mitch was intrigued. He sat up and leaned in towards the screen with curious anticipation. When he opened the email, it included only a link. Their high end web security didn't flag it as a virus or a phish, so he clicked on it. He jumped back and averted his eyes upon seeing the image on the screen. It was a man strung up by his wrists with chains. He wasn't wearing a shirt and didn't appear to be harmed other than being unconscious. Mitch ran through the building to Matty's office, "Director Webber, I've got something in the dummy email account you need to see."

Her voice reflected her offense at the uninvited interruption by a low ranking lab rat she didn't even recognize "Excuse me?"

He barged in without an invitation and grabbed her tablet from her hands, frantically pounding commands on the screen until he flipped it toward her, showing the image from the website. Matty gasped audibly, "oh God, Jack." The normally unflappable leader was suddenly scrambling for words. "Is this real? Is it a video? Is it live?" She was already dialing Mac's number before finishing her sentence.

"Hey Matty," Mac greeted cheerily, "We just walked into the building."

"Is Jack with you?"

"No. He was supposed to change the oil in the GTO yesterday after doing laundry, so he was gonna drive her in and grab donuts. Bozer and I carpooled and picked up Riley on our way."

"When was the last time you saw him?" Matty's voice was firm, like she was interrogating him.

"I dunno? At work? Day before yesterday." Mac switched the call to speaker so Riley and Bozer could assist in fielding questions.

"Did you talk to him this morning?"

"Yesterday morning. He asked me what was the best way to get chocolate milk out of a dress shirt." Mac answered and looked at his friends to see if they had anything else to add. They both shook their heads with confused looks.

Jack's not usually late, and when he is it almost always has something to do with Mac.

"War room. Now." She ended the call abruptly.

The three young agents entered and closed the door to the war room where the smart glass was already opaque. This was serious.

"Riley," Matty started as Riley instinctively pulled out her computer, "I need you to track this feed. Find out if it's live, and find out exactly where it's coming from."

Bozer and Mac looked at each other wide eyed and confused until Matty pressed a button and the image of their friend filled the screens on the wall. Riley gasped but couldn't look away. She was looking for anything and everything to confirm that man on the screen was NOT Jack.

"Mac, Bozer, I need you to use any and every clue on this screen to figure out where, when, why, and who is doing this."

The scar from a bullet hole in his right shoulder, a scar from a knife on his belly, that ring on his finger, Riley could not deny that was her father figure dangling from a ceiling lord knows where. She watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest, confirming this was a video and not a still. Once she realized she was probably the only one that could pin down the location, she snapped out of it and went to work.

Bozer forgot how to breathe for a few moments. It was only when Mac spoke up that he remembered to inhale. "Cinder block walls, no natural light, concrete floor, looks like some sort of warehouse or basement, but the way the fluorescent light diffuses, it looks bigger inside more like a warehouse than a basement. Is there any audio so we can hear the ambient noises."

"I'm not sure. I haven't heard anything yet." Matty apologized as Riley pushed the feed through several programs that would pick apart every pixel and sound to hopefully find their partner before it was too late.


	3. The Dollar Sign and the Daughter

Author's note:The italics are what's going on on the video/in the warehouse. Regular print is the folks at the Phoenix. There's a bit of flip flopping with no visual cues, so this was the best way I could do it. Thanks for reading, chaps. Feedback welcome (and squealed over.)

Chapter 3~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

_The red light clicked on next to the camera indicating that someone had opened the feed. Since that link was only shared to one place, it would only be a matter of minutes before their intended audience was watching. It was almost showtime. Within minutes the hits were growing exponentially, undoubtedly by the code monkeys at the Phoenix trying to get a location, but the same type of systems Phoenix used to prevent people seeing them were also being used by the cartel to be untraceable. _

_The goon squad all donned black hoods to hide from facial recognition software. If this crew were recognized, with clever deduction by the talented agents at the Phoenix, their identities could give away their location. The only face that would be seen on camera was Sancola's. He stepped into the frame of view and stopped in front of Jack, blocking him from view. _

_"Agent MacGyver, you've eluded capture far too long, so I've taken matters into my own hands. He walked back to where Jack was hanging limply with only the balls of his bare feet reaching the floor. "I have your guard dog." He grabbed the front of Jack's hair and yanked his head back, revealing his unmarred yet unconscious face. He gave the captive a hard slap across the cheek garnering no response, and let his head flop back down with a bounce, lolling slightly from side to side. Riley and Bozer had to look away. _

"What's he gonna do?" Bozer whispered, not realizing he'd said it aloud. He knew what El Noche did to Mac, and he was afraid he was about to witness an execution of one of his closest friends.

Mac muttered quietly with hopelessness "I think they're going to torture him in front of us until I turn myself over to them."

_El Noche walked out of frame as a masked assailant entered from the other side of the screen with a cattle prod. He put it to Jack's abdomen and Jack roared to life with an agonized scream. A little cattle prodding was nothing to Jack when he expected it, but he was pulled out of unconsciousness with an extended high voltage shock. He instinctively tried to pull away from the offender, but his feet couldn't get a hold on the ground to flee and his arms were shackled above his head. Jack's vision cleared once the prod was pulled away, and he noticed the camera pointed at him._

_Sancola stepped back into frame, "Until you turn yourself in to me, my people will mercilessly beat your guard dog."_

_Jack cut him off, "do your worst, El Nacho. I can take it."_

_"And after we finish him, we will come for your other friends. Their blood will be on your hands."_

_"Don't listen_ _to him Mac!" Jack called to the camera, "I can take it, stall 'im long enough for you to find us and take 'em out. I got this under control, hoss. Just do your thing and come find me."_

_"Shut up." _

_"I don't think you've said anything nice to me since I got here. Is this how you treat all your guests?" Jack sassed to the drug lord who responded by punching Jack in the stomach and knocking the wind out of him. He gasped and fought to catch his breath and stop himself from swinging with his feet. _

_Jack started to mentally prepare and psych himself out for the long day ahead. He couldn't crack knowing his kids were watching, no matter what happened he needed to remain unflappable for their sake. One of the hooded gangsters approached Jack slowly, he could see the extensive facial tattoos peeking through the eye holes of the hood, he'd gotten a good look at this guy earlier. _

_"Nice," Jack started, "you're sending the biggest amigo first. Not gonna send one of the smaller guys in to warm me up. Just straight to the…" he was cut off by a punch to the left side of his face. Jack shook it off immediately and continued with his taunt, "ok, I see why now, Lurch here hits like a girl. I know some fuckin badass girls, and you hit nothing like them. Hell, I know a toddler that could probably kick your ass." That comment landed a Jack another punch to the same spot. _

_Jack spat near his assailant, blood and a piece of a tooth hitting the ground by the guy's shoe. His tongue skimmed each of his molars in search of the broken one. He feigned delight upon discovery of the broken tooth, "oh thank goodness it was that one, that bastard has been bothering me for weeks, at least now I can get it fixed on a worker's comp claim. Remind me to get you to sign off as a witness on the first report of injury paperwork."_

Bozer cringed, "why is he taunting them? For a guy who claims to have a great sense of self preservation, he sure is trying to provoke them into hurting him more."

"It's just what he does," Mac explained, "but he usually taunts them to draw attention away from me." Mac grabbed a notebook and pen and started scribbling something down. "This time he's trying to tell us something. Riley, check the gang database for a-" he stretched the vowel sound in thought as he decoded Jack's message, "Hispanic male at least 6'3" heavily tattooed and affiliated with El Noche's cartel"

Riley began her search, "Mac, that's bringing up a lot of hits, how do we narrow them down?"

"Ok, um the tattoo criteria, at least one of them is money related like dollar signs or something, one a woman or a woman's name. No, a picture of a woman...no, a tattoo of a child!"

Bozer was thoroughly confused, "Mac, I know you guys are close, like soulmate level bros, but since when have you had a telepathy thing."

"Jack is telling us all of this." Mac replied.

"No, he's taunting the guy punching him while he's chained up hanging from the ceiling."

"No. Look." Mac pointed to the screen, thankful for the opportunity to look beyond what's actually happening in front of him to distance himself from the pain of having to watch his partner be beaten instead of him. "See Jack's hands, it looks like a nervous tick, but he keeps alternating between Morse code and ASL, constantly making the letters T and A."

"T and A means something else in my book." Bozer mentioned awkwardly.

"No, t and a. Watch. T-A-T T-A-T." Mac explained, trying not to sound frustrated; Riley and Bozer both gasped at the realization. "He referred to him as amigo, so a Hispanic male. He called him Lurch, so he's at least 6'3". And a toddler that could kick his ass meant he has a tattoo of a little girl, and the insurance thing about money told us some tattoos to look for."

"You guys have a secret code?" Riley tried to repress the shock in her voice.

"Not really, but working together for so long, you pick up things about a person."

"So you could be completely off base and Jack is actually just taunting them." Bozer's voice was apprehensive.

"No," Matty decided to chime in, "he's a very skilled operative. You guys may see him as the goofy muscle of this operation most of the time, but he's not just here playing bodyguard. He's been in intelligence since you guys were in diapers. Jack is definitely sending a message."


	4. The Brass Monkey on Aisle 5

_Author's note:_ chapters are about to get longer and longer and probably should be split I to more chapters, but I'll spare you the cliffhangers. Thank you for reading! Comments appreciated, even if you just want to tell me I'm an asshole, that's welcome too. 3Bunn

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ Chapter 4

_The fleshy sound of knuckles hitting Jack's bare chest could still be heard over his gasps for air. When the barrage of punches stopped, Jack drooped his head down as if to watch his own chest struggle to rise and fall, panting and trying to catch his breath._

"Stay down Jack!" Riley pleaded to the video feed as if he could actually hear her.

_Jack expelled a deep wet cough before continuing breathlessly, "if I knew (gasp) you were gonna try (gasp) to get to second base (gasp) I'dve made you buy me a drink first." He raised his head and laughed at the sheer anger conveyed in the masked man's eyes. The laugh triggered a coughing fit punctuated by even harder laughter. "We got the bottle, you got the cup, come on everybody let's get…brass monkey, that funky monkey." Jack shimmied his hips with his own beat and a spiteful smirk, continuing his song. "Brass monkey junkie, that funky monkey." He braced himself for the punch he saw coming, gripping the ground as best he could with his toes, and locking his shoulders, but the force of the blow to his nose whipped his neck back and knocked him out. His chin fell to his chest, head lolling slightly side to side as blood poured from his nose straight down to the ground._

Riley screamed at the horrific violence of the direct hit to his face. Her eyes watered partially in sympathy pain but also grief for having watched it happen to someone she loved. Her stomach turned at the sight of the blood pooling on the floor by his feet that were no longer steadying him as his suspended body swayed slightly.

"A-a-a monkey tattoo." Mac, also silenced by the brutality he just witnessed, stammered to make use of the information Jack paid so heavily for.

Riley averted her eyes and went back to narrowing down the search. Seconds later, it paid off. She slapped the side of the laptop in celebration, "Bingo!" She sent the search result to the bottom right corner of the wall screen for the rest of the team to see. "Enrique Velasquez, 29 years old, one of El Noche's heavily used cronies, last known location was Las Cruces, New Mexico."

Matty pulled out her phone and walked toward the door, "I'll start a team that way. Meanwhile, find all the properties abandoned or owned by the cartel's various shell corporations."

Bozer chimed in, "but it looks like he doesn't stay anywhere for very long. He's been arrested in LA, Austin, Atlanta, and another half a dozen cities. I doubt he actually stayed in Las Cruces very long."

"I'd appreciate it if the newest spy school graduate would not undermine my decisions so quickly. This is the only lead we've got. And I'll have you know based on observation, that this thug has a tattoo of a little girl on his neck and a monkey on the other side. It's probably his daughter, and while he doesn't mind dishing out a beating or murder every once in a while, he's probably somewhat attached to his child and wouldn't be as likely to leave her behind anymore. So until something BETTER shows up, we are acting on what we have."

Bozer knew she was on edge due to one of her best agents and close friend being in danger, but he still shrunk into the couch, trying to become invisible after being snapped at so harshly despite his good intentions. Matty walked through the door and slammed it behind her, getting balls rolling on her way to her office. Tears slipping from her eyes when she finally reached her desk as her phone call ended.

"Boze," Mac tried to comfort him, seeing now that he had to stay strong for the others. Jack was doing everything he could to keep them from worrying, but Mac knew better. He could see through Jack's tough guy act and knew it wouldn't hold up forever. Mac approached his roommate from behind as he touched Bozer's shoulder, "Matty's just snippy. You were right to question it, and any other time it would have been constructive input. Unfortunately, we don't know how long Jack's been missing, the mode of travel, or even how they got him. We're basically grasping at straws right now and we'll take any lead we can get."

Matty returned to the war room completely put together with fresh determination, "Riley, have you narrowed down the search any more?"

"I've found a few buildings." She pointed toward the top of the big screen, diverting her eyes from Jack as much as possible. "See up at the top? if we...hold on a sec." She tapped a few buttons and had the top left corner of the screen zoomed in to cover a third of wall, and replayed the feed in that box from the beginning in 16x speed. "You can see the lighting change just the slightest bit over time, that's the cloud cover moving so there are windows. We're looking for a warehouse type building or garage with high up very small windows. So we're down to 4 sites within a 50 mile proximity of Las Cruces."

"Good eye, Riley!" Mac congratulated her as she shrunk the zoomed window back down and replaced it with a map with circled locations.

"Excellent work. I'll send these to the inbound team to check." Matty explained as she disseminated the information from her tablet.

The map window was shrunk and Jack's feed took up the majority of the wall again. The room was uncomfortably silent for several moments. You wouldn't know the picture was a video if not for the blood dripping, thankfully much more slowly, collecting on the tip of Jack's nose until heavy enough to fall to the gruesome puddle on the floor.

_Sancola stalked slowly back toward his captive with the cattle prod again. He pressed it to Jack's belly on top of red welt left from the last shock. Jack wasn't as animated waking up this time. He clenched his teeth and tried to suppress a pained groan, but when the shock didn't let up he raised his head with an angry roar. It was downright frightening coupled with the blood dripping down his face from his nose and mouth. _

_Jack steadied himself with the ground, narrowly avoiding the puddle at his feet. He looked directly at El Noche with a snarl and spat in his face. If it were anyone else and not his leverage to obtain his actual desired mark, El Noche would have shot him in the face without hesitation, but since this was Jack, he had to keep him alive a little longer as bait._

"Jack, no! Stop provoking him!" Riley choked back sobs and turned her head as Sancola slowly wiped the blood off his own face with his hand. They couldn't see his expression, but they were sure it was terrifying because of the way Jack laughed at him, Mac had learned over the years that that particular laugh was Jack's tell, but he never let on to Jack that he was aware of it. Jack was convinced he was about to die.

_"You look like a cute little turtle when you're angry." Jack provoked until he was prodded in the belly with electricity again, prepared this time because he tensed up but did not scream no matter how long the shock lasted. Frustrated, Sancola threw the cattle prod behind him and kicked jack square in the stomach and walked away. Jack swung backward from the chain, losing the little support he had from his feet. His wrists were jerked down into the shackles with his loss of balance, and he felt his bones shift and crack uncomfortably, followed by a trickle of blood sliding down from where the raw skin on his hands finally broke. He scrambled, trying to get his feet to stop him from swinging, but they were now slick from the blood on the floor. He grabbed the chain to pull up on and take some of the pressure off his wrists, but couldn't hold it for very long. The blow to his belly quickly took its toll and he vomited a significant mix of bile and blood onto the ground in front of him. _

_He spit a few more times to attempt to get the sour taste out of his mouth, but it didn't make a difference. His swinging finally slowed to where he could support his weight more with his feet and take a load off of his wrists. He knew he was looking really rough and needed to overcompensate to reassure his Phoenix family that he was fine. "Clean up on aisle 5!" _

_Jack chuckled at his own joke, "you better bring the kitty litter for this one, it's pretty messy. Mop and bucket ain't gonna cut it." He stood there quietly for a moment, not sure what to do with the silence while he knew he was on camera being watched._

His family wasn't sure what to do either. They didn't want to watch, but needed to. They needed the reassurance that Jack was ok and needed to wait for more clues just in case. Riley felt ill and was quietly crying on and off. Mac was trying to decipher what Jack was trying to tell him with the "aisle 5" or if it was just him trying to cut the uncomfortable silence. Frustrated with his lack of progress, Mac walked out of the room and slammed the door.

Mac avoided his own reflection in the mirror at the sink. He cupped his hands and caught water to splash on his face. He pressed his fingers into his eyes and wiped slowly down his face with a frustrated sigh. Mac blinked slowly, examining the puffy redness around his eyes and the crystal blue brightness of his irises, evidence of tears shed. He couldn't let his team see him crack. They needed Mac's reassurance that Jack was gonna be fine. He knew that best as his partner; he knew what kind of beating Jack could take and knew his limits better than Jack himself did. Mac couldn't shake the thought that this was his fault and could have been prevented. It should have been prevented. Why was Sancola free? Why was he alive? Until the cartel had Mac in custody, his whole family was in danger. They hadn't yet told Mac where to turn himself in, maybe that's why they hadn't done too much to Jack yet. The worst pain inflicted so far were a direct result of Jack mouthing off to his captors. Mac knew that once they gave a meet location, the clock was starting there was no turning back, Jack was as good as lost. Even if he did turn himself in, they never said they wouldn't kill Jack anyway, but at least he wouldn't die alone.

He hopped up onto the bathroom counter, knowing that no one would disturb him in there while he worked out his plan. Using all resources available to him on his phone while inside the Phoenix, Mac deduced a likely location to find someone who he could surrender to before anyone knew he was even gone.

Bozer was waiting outside the heavy wooden restroom door when Mac emerged. "We were worried about you roommie, you were in there for a long time." Mac shook his head and looked down at the floor, having no answer or explanation for his absence, his opportunity to leave the building lost. "This is tough on all of us, Mac, but I know it's especially hard for you." Bozer pulled Mac in for a hug and wrapped his arms tightly around Mac's back, who returned the hug weakly. Bozer gave a few heavy handed pats before releasing and guiding his friend back to the war room. "You need another minute?" he asked before grabbing the door handle. Mac shook his head weakly and averted his eyes from the screen as they entered.


	5. The Ferret and the Stripper

Authors note: thanks for sticking around. There are a lot of old songs bouncing around this chapter, here's the list for reference:

Banditos - the Refreshments

Don't Bring me Down - ELO

Goodbye Stranger - Supertramp

Maniac - Michael Sembelo (from soundtrack to Flashdance)

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ Chapter 5

"_What are you guys waiting for? This is starting to stink. Man, if you don't clean it up, I'm probably gonna barf again. And then when I get sick, you'll get sick," he made eye contact with someone off screen, "and everybody will start vomiting. I'll be like Chunk from the Goonies, but with real vomit." Jack flashed a very satisfied smirk, "second thought, I like that idea. Go ahead and leave it there. I wanna see that happen." _

_He spit again, blood from his nose still dripping over his lips. "Y'all got some water? I really could use a drink. Anything actually, I just want to rinse this taste out of my mouth, unless we're in Mexico, then I don't want to drink the water. A Coke? That would be good. Those Mexican Cokes in the glass bottle with the real sugar. Damn, those are good, I could go for a really cold one of those right now. Are we in Mexico?" Jack paused his babbling hoping for a response one way or another to help the Phoenix kids with a location. Judging from their lack of response, he deduced they were not in Mexico, so he pressed on with the topic so his captors would think he was sending his people to Mexico. "So we are in Mexico!" Jack acted excited to have solved a puzzle. _

_"Can we get one with some Jim Beam or something in it? Damn, I could use a Coke right now. I mean we could get one from the gas station across the street from my apartment, but y'all knew that since you obviously know where I live. How long have you been watching me? That's real creepy. You saw me in my underwear, watching Golden Girls, jerking off? Most middle aged guys like me go for the younger girls, barely legal, 19 years old. Dude, that's creepy. I like 'em old, like super old. I want the curtains to match the carpet, and all of it to be white." He paused for a moment, remembering his audience, "I'm kidding! I like chicks BORN in the '70s not IN their 70s." He made eye contact with someone off screen. "Not sure bout you though, bro? I can tell you like them grannies." He laughed harder, having difficulty getting the words out through giggles. "I bet you had a thing with Lurch over there's grandma. I saw him give you the stink eye. Y'all have history."_

Mac got right back on track with the hints Jack was throwing. "Riley, check and see if it says who runs with or is affiliated with Mr. Velasquez there. Someone over 40, maybe even family."

"Yep, looks like Velasquez was arrested once with this dude," Riley stated as she sent a picture of an older man, "He's apparently one of Sancola's OGs, his right hand man. Damn, Jack, you just told us that you're with El Noche's 2nd in command without even letting them know you knew...or something. You know what I'm trying to say." She continued to check the record when let out a frustrated huff, "this guy has never been in Las Cruces as far as this record shows. But then again, El Noche's number two probably doesn't have to get his hands as dirty, giving the orders instead of carrying them out."

"The team will be landing in less than 5, they'll clear those four buildings and get back if we're hit a dead end. Find us another location, Riley, just in case."

"I'm trying, he's a little more slippery. Looks like he has a semi permanent residence near Reno and another just outside Phoenix and another in Tijuana. Looks like Lurch has left a footprint in those three cities too."

Mac interjected, "Jack established that they're not in Mexico, so if they're not actually in Las Cruces, which city should they check next? We can't rule out San Diego either due to its proximity to Mexico and the cartel's presence there." He needed to narrow down the location a little more. "Jack's been watching these guys off screen, but there's only so much information he can get from that."

Mac couldn't wait for more information, he needed to act. He walked out of the war room again and toward the bathroom. He went inside for a minute to wait and checked to see if he was followed. No one was waiting for him outside the bathroom door this time, so he snuck around the wall toward the stairs to the parking garage.

When Mac got to his Jeep, Bozer was already waiting for him there blocking the driver side door.

"I know what you're doing, Mac, and you can't."

"I'm not doing anything, Boze, that's the problem."

"Well I'm definitely not letting you turn yourself in to the cartel. I know that's what you're going to do."

"Well until I do, you and Riley and Matty are all in danger. I need to turn myself in and maybe you can be safe. Maybe they'll let Jack go."

Bozer grabbed his roommate's shoulders, trying to reason with him, "You know as well as I do that they aren't going to let Jack go. And if you give up, Jack will never forgive you."

"I doubt he has a lot of time left to be mad at me for that." Mac grumbled, defeated.

"He will take as much time as we need. He's feeding you information, and you're the only one that can decipher it. You can't give up, not yet." Bozer had an epiphany, "I know it's hard to watch, none of us has the stomach for that, but maybe we can go check his apartment for clues. I called that lady neighbor of his, she says his car is there and she hadn't seen him all weekend, but his door was locked. If you want to, we can go together."

"Ok, Boze, that sounds like a good plan." Mac conceded.

"But I'm driving." Bozer snatched the Jeep's keys from Mac, "I still don't trust that you're not gonna knock me out with a glass of milk like B. A. Baracus and put me on a plane, then go turn yourself in to the cartel." He shooed Mac toward the other side of the car, and Mac obliged.

"Does Matty know where we're going?" Mac's voice was low and monotone.

"Her idea." Bozer admitted, "She knew you'd try to sneak out. Some Phoenix people are on the way to collect evidence too, but the person to best evaluate the scene is probably you, so here we go. Now call Matty so they can keep us updated."

Mac held his phone out to get both of them in the frame of the video call. "Hi, Matty. Have we missed any new clues?"

"No, Blondie, he seems to be trying to entertain them with his singing." Matty replied.

"What song?"

"Obscure 90s stuff," Matty explained, "it's a message to me." A goodbye, she thought to herself, refusing to let the kids know; a throwback to a past mission where Jack thought he was going to die, confessing and professing everything on his conscience to Matty over coms. Begging her to let his loved ones know he was thinking about them. He was telling her again, but covered up in a way that made him look like he was just singing a song about Banditos.

_Jack was already well into his song, "So give your ID card to the border guard. Your alias says you Captain John Luke Picard of the United Federation of Planets, 'Cause they won't speak English any ways._

_Everybody knows that the world is full of stupid people, So meet me at the mission at midnight_

_We'll divy up there, Everybody knows that the world is full of stupid people. So I got the pistol. So I get the Pesos. Yeah that seems fair."_

_His captors were ignoring him at this point, waiting for Mac to receive the location to turn himself in so they could start to torture Jack on camera. Two had left the building and had not returned. _

_"We'll put the sugar in the tank of the sheriff's car. We'll slash the deputy's tires, they won't get very far, when they finally get the word that there's been a hold-up. Uh huh." Jack stopped his singing for a moment as the two that left returned. "Oh, shit." He laughed as they turned the hose on him. _

_They sprayed Jack with a powerful stream from a hose. It stung his bare skin as the high pressure stream pounded his flesh from his side up his chest as the moved closer. He turned his head and protected his face as best he could with his arms as they ran the hose up before aiming the stream at the puddle on the floor and down a drain several feet away._

_"See, y'all took my advice about cleaning up the yak puddle. Ol' Jack isn't just a dumb grunt. I don't want anyone else up in here slipping and getting hurt. Hey man, after this is all over, you can hire me as like a foreman in this factory, I'll keep everyone safe, get everything up to code."_

Mac interjected to the people in the war room, "Did you get that, Riley?"

"Got it, Mac. Factory, possibly not operational due to code violations. Checking San Diego, Phoenix, Reno, and surrounding areas."

_Jack managed to catch some of the over splash on his face when they sprayed him more after cleaning the floor. They sprayed him head to toe repeatedly hoping to bruise as much surface area as possible with the high pressure hose. His skin was red from irritation, but he had to play it cool the only way he knew how, singing and dancing like a fool._

_"She's a maniac, maniac on the floor. And she's dancing like she's never danced before." He only made it through the hook once before the stream hit him in the armpit and made him yelp unexpectedly just before they shut the water off "Hot damn, did y'all know that spot was gonna hurt so bad? Because damn, that's supposed to be my tickle spot. That shit didn't tickle at all. Dude, it still stings. Whatever you do to me, don't shoot me in the armpit with the water again, please. That was torture. Damn."_

_He shook his head vigorously to flick the water out of his hair, but the action made him see stars. Jack squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to will the dizziness away. His jeans were soaked, adding extra weight to the force pulling on his wrists. His shoulders were one wrong move away from dislocating, and his wrists were bleeding more. Knowing his family needed more information to find him, he had one more trick up his sleeve. _

Mac slipped the key into the lock of Jack's front door knob, but the deadbolt wasn't secured. Someone was trying to cover his tracks. Inside the front door he found Jack's favorite gun to carry on a table and his leather jacket draped over the back of a chair. Mac went to the safe and punched in the 6 digit code.

"You know the combination to Jack's safe?" Bozer inquired, impressed.

"You don't?" Mac asked as if it were common knowledge. "It's mine, Riley's, and your birthdays, just the day digits. Now you know it too in case you ever need to get in to it."

Bozer felt delighted to be included in the intimate knowledge of someone's personal safe, and even more honored that he was a piece of the combination. "Jack knows my birthday? I'm touched."

Mac looked back at him from his probe of the safe, "Probably knows your blood type too."

"Ok, that's a little creepy."

"It's tactical." Mac moved a couple things inside the safe and closed it the door, standing back up. "Everything is accounted for in the safe."

"It doesn't look like there was a struggle or a fight." Bozer lifted and looked under items around the room, not a thing out of place. "Either it didn't happen here and they brought his things back...or...I'm not sure how that would have played out. Was it a girl? Did a girl lure Jack to the cartel?"

"I doubt that." Mac was walking around, looking under things and around things. Bozer went to the bedroom to find a neatly made bed and nothing out of place. He returned to the main living space to find Mac staring into the kitchen. "Something is off here. Do you see it too?"

"The bowl! It's empty. Why would Jack leave his gun and jacket, but take his wallet and keys and not put up a fight. Something's extra fishy."

Mac was already walking into the kitchen to look around. Nothing seemed out of place, he opened cabinets and drawers, unsure of what exactly he was looking for. Mac opened the dishwasher and was met with resistance. He closed it and bent down to investigate what was stopping the door and pulled out Jack's wallet.

Shortly after he found Jack's keys in the disposal and called Matty. "Jack was drugged."

Riley piped in over the phone call as well, "Are you sure? How does that even happen?"

"A girl!" Bozer interjected from the other room.

"Found his keys in the disposal and wallet under the dishwasher. Definitely drugged. Gun and jacket are still here." Mac spoke as he walked toward the jacket; he picked it up and sniffed it, garnering a sideways look from Bozer. Mac held the jacket out toward his friend, "do you smell 'girl' on this?"

Bozer took a whiff, "no, just Jack." He made a face of disillusionment, wondering how smelling another man's outerwear became part of this investigation.

Mac stuck his hand into the jacket pocket and retrieved a receipt that he held by the corner and flapped open. "Matty, there's a receipt here from the burger place down the street at lunch yesterday, paid cash. Maybe they used a contact poison on the money or something." He put the receipt to the phone camera so they could capture the info and speak to some of the employees.

"So how did they get him out of here? Dragging an unconscious grown man is going to draw attention. And if he was conscious and at gunpoint or something, he would have already found a way to tell us what kind of vehicle or alerted someone somehow as he was leaving."

Mac went out the front door and got on his knees examining the hallway floor.

"What exactly are you looking for?" Bozer asked from the doorway.

"Not sure, but when I find it, I'll let you know." He handed his phone to Bozer and bent eye level to the ground. He carefully examined the low pile straw mat in front of the door from all angles making a mental note Bozer held off on asking about. He crawled backward and looked carefully at a few spots on the floor. "Hey, shine a light right here." Bozer used the phone's flashlight to illuminate the ground. "Do you see this?"

"No."

"Come down here." Bozer joined Mac on the ground. "Do you see it? The tire marks? Like a hand truck or dolly," Mac indicated a path with his finger from Jack's door threshold, over the mat, and a pivoting scuff in the middle of the hallway.

"Oh my God, yes. They drugged him and carried him away on a hand truck."

"Riley, you get that?" Mac asked the phone now sitting on the welcome mat.

Riley called out from her seat in the war room "On it. Checking the cameras in Jack's parking lot."

"We're headed back in."

_Jack stood on his toes, cold and wet, waiting for something or anything to happen. While he wasn't in a hurry to have his ass beaten, he needed some action to get his plan rolling. He began to sing again,_

_"It was an early morning yesterday_

_I was up before the dawn_

_And I really have enjoyed my stay_

_But I must be moving on."_

_He paused for dramatic effect._

_"Come on. Y'all don't know Supertramp? Lemme give you a few more verses." He belted more words, volume increasing with a hip bump with each line,_

_"Like a king without a castle_

_Like a queen without a throne_

_I'm an early morning lover_

_And I must be moving on" he hummed the instrumental breaks and continued with his song._

_"Now I believe in what you say_

_Is the undisputed truth_

_But I have to have things my own way_

_To keep me in my youth_

_Like a ship without an anchor_

_Like a slave without a chain_

_Just the thought of those sweet ladies_

_Sends a shiver through my veins_

_And I will go on shining_

_Shining like brand new_

_I'll never look behind me_

_My troubles will be few."_

_He bobbed his head to the music that wasn't there and started back with a falsetto,_

_"Goodbye stranger it's been nice _

_Hope you find your paradise"_

_he looked around the room at his audience, all ignoring him. "Really, no one knows this one? It's a classic. Oh well." _

_Jack dangled there in silence, waiting._

When Mac and Bozer walked back into the war room, Riley showed them on screen what she'd tracked. "Here's Jack walking home." She sped up the footage, "and here's a dude getting into this box truck and coming out with this appliance dolly, probably empty the way he's handling it so easily." More fast forward, "and here he is leaving with the box again, seemingly heavier than before. No tag on the truck, but I lost visual near Burbank and have a few programs running and checking traffic cams. It's a lot slower and harder without a tag on a vehicle since it won't pop up on any LPR, and they seem to have avoided the interstate. I'm gonna check manually too"

"That's great, Riley. Everything helps." Matty assured her. An email alert came in to the dummy email address from the same one that sent the video link. "The clock is ticking now."

_A different assailant approached Jack slowly. He donned a hood like the others had and pulled a box cutter from his pocket as he approached._

_Jack confronted him, rambling, "I hope you're not coming to cut my pants off or something because I'm really cold right now. Your audience will not appreciate me in my drawers today. Little Jack is trying to shrivel up and climb inside of my body. He is not fit for viewing right now. Not like that time when I was a stripper. They kept that green room so hot, everybody was constantly glistening with sweat." _

_When he reached Jack, he extended the box cutter blade and traced a shallow line diagonally across Jack's belly. It stung and he winced, but he didn't falter._

"Jack, no!" Mac yelled at the screen. "We're so close, don't!"

"What is it Mac, what's he telling you?" Riley questioned.

They watched and cringed as the masked man carved another line below and parallel to the first onto Jack's abdomen, then another above the first line.

"That actually is a code we have. When Jack talks about being a stripper, it means he's gonna play possum and either try to escape or just try to rest for a minute."

"That's so...random." Bozer chimed in.

"Not really," Mac continued, "we've actually been in situations so many times when we needed to relay that message without being obvious. If Jack talks about being stripper, he's going to take a dive with the next punch and 'play possum,' as he likes to call it. If he mentions this one particular song, he will play possum and then we make our escape. If one of us talks about a pet ferret, that means I'm the one who's going to take the fall. If the ferret is mentioned by name, and it's a short name, then I fake a seizure or something and pass out; if the ferret has a long name, I take a hit and stay down, then we fight back and escape on his cue."

"God that is so random it's genius," Matty said, "and it's sad that you needed to devise a code to convey that plan to one another, but I'm very relieved that you came up with some sort of system, no matter how weird it is."

"We were drunk after a debrief. We'd almost died, again, and felt like maybe we should have some signals that weren't completely obvious. Jack does like to run his mouth, so it just seems like that's what he's doing when we're in a bind. It's actually been pretty useful several times. But right NOW, I don't think it's a good idea at all. Either Jack is hurting much more than he's letting on and trying to tell me to hurry, or he's going to try to escape."

_The man continued to carve on Jack, now making 3 more lines perpendicular to and to match the first 3. Jack gritted his teeth and took it without a sound. Once the masked man finished his masterpiece, he walked back off camera. _

_Jack visibly relaxed and the blood crept down his stomach from the first cuts and flowed freely from the most recent, soaking in at the top of his wet jeans. The skin pulled and burned with every breath, but he tried to slow and shallow his breaths to keep that pull to a minimum. Within a few uncomfortably silent moments, he was able to block out the pain. He couldn't let his kids see him falter. _

_Jack clapped 8 times in quick succession while shaking his hips and started in the middle of another song,_

_"You're lookin' good just like a snake in the grass, one of these days you're gonna break your glass._

_Don't bring me down, nono nono nono nono no. Ooh ooh ooh_

_I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor_

_Don't bring me down."_

"Shit," Mac whispered under his breath, "that's the song. Jack's going to try to escape."

_"You got me shakin' got me runnin' away_

_You got me crawlin' up to you everyday_

_Don't bring me down, no no no no no. Ooh ooh ooh._

_I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor. Don't bring me down."_

_Jack's melody was interrupted by an uppercut to his chin. He recovered quickly, "Ow, fucker. Warn a guy next time. You're so small I didn't even see you coming. You need to wear a bell, like a cat."_

_His comments angered his newest and shortest assailant who wasn't actually short, but Jack needed something to poke the bear with. He came at Jack with a left hook to Jack's temple and another quick one to the cheek. "Ooh, the little gremlin is fierce!" Jack laughed and teased. The next blow was harder than the first, which was exactly what he'd hoped for. The man's fist made contact with Jack's right cheek as his head snapped to the side. He immediately fell limp, head drooping to his chest and wrists slipping down the shackles to support his weight. His ankles turned outward and knees apart. Blood dripped from his lips as the masked man walked away._

Riley cringed and averted her eyes. "You said he's faking, right, Mac?"

"Yea, supposed to be." Mac was unsure of his own words.

"I dunno," Bozer confessed, "that looked pretty real."


	6. The Escape and the Epinephrine

_Author's note: _I've got to be honest, I just reread this chapter for the first time since November, and it's some of my best work. I had a little help with the medical stuff at the end from a wonderful friend. Anyway, thanks for sticking around with this long ass story. Here comes more action and the rescue attempt!

_CHAPTER 6~~ ~~ ~~ ~~_

_Despite his lax appearance, Jack was on high alert, listening to every little sound in the room. Once it sounded like his captors were otherwise occupied, Jack mentally prepared to spring into action. He was sure he wouldn't actually get away, but if he could get a few of these goons into the camera frame, maybe Riley could use facial recognition to identify them and narrow down their location. If he could get outside the building, he could look for identifying marks or numbers to relay back to his team. He honestly didn't plan to survive his escape, but wanted his team to find him and stop El Noche and his crew so Mac and the rest of his family would be safe from them once and for all._

_Dislocating, or more likely breaking his thumbs, would be the most difficult part of his escape, but his wrists already slick with blood would facilitate his quick release from the shackles._

_Jack took a deep breath and held it, hoping the cartel wouldn't notice. He steadied himself back up on his toes and yanked as hard as he could while folding his thumbs in as tightly as they would go. He felt the skin along his thumbs scrape off against the metal as he pulled his wrists free, ready to make a run for it._

_Jack ran as fast as he could, bare feet barely making contact with the concrete floor as he flew to the door. Thankfully it wasn't locked, and Jack laughed with delight as he reached the outside._

Bozer noticed Jack move first, he gave Riley a smack on the arm to get her attention. She batted his hand away, disregarding his intrusion, "I think I found the truck, it headed north toward Reno! Matty! I think they went to Reno!" Her excitement escalated with visual confirmation of the truck's direction of travel. Bozer finally drew her attention to the wall screen. She stood and gasped as Jack ran out of the frame of the screen, her hand covering her mouth in astonishment, "Holy shit! He got out!"

They heard the door at the warehouse open along with Jack's excited cackle, floored that Jack seemed to make it out of the building. When they saw his captors zoom across the screen, all of the excitement turned into dread. Moments after hearing the warehouse door open again, they heard gunfire. After a dozen shots, the firing stopped. The realization that Jack either got away or was taken down hit Riley so abruptly that she almost got sick.

The next moments dragged by like what felt like hours staring at that empty screen, listening for ant signs of life. The Phoenix crew heard the warehouse door open yet again and El Noche's number two strolled through the frame of the screen. While they wanted to be excited about identity confirmation for someone they only assumed was there based on vague clues, it was becoming increasingly difficult to celebrate. A faint scraping sound grew more discernible the closer Lurch got to the camera. He walked into the frame dragging a limp Jack across the floor by his elbow, leaving a trail of blood drawing a gory line on the concrete.

_Jack had made it about 20 steps outside of the building with no one on his tail and turned around to see what kind of info he could relay back to his team about the location. The large red numbers '473' on the side of the building were good enough for Jack. He used some of the blood oozing from his wrists to make 3 dots on the backs of his hands on 3 different segments of his fingers hoping the mess on his thumbs didn't prevent the message from being clear to his team. He continued to run, with no destination in mind. There were no surrounding buildings, no main roads, he wasn't sure where running would get him; he needed to steal a car. He pulled on the handle of what was probably one of his captor's sedans, but it was locked. He continued to check doors as the 4 goons funneled out of the door of the warehouse toward him, firing haphazardly at him like a group of stormtroopers. He found a box truck with the passenger door unlocked just as his calf was struck by a bullet. He climbed inside the truck and slid across the seat, checking the visor for an ignition key. A bullet entered the windshield, so Jack ducked down sideways in the seat and continued to look for keys to start the vehicle._

_Unfortunately for Jack, the key was not anywhere inside the truck, and he was trapped. He raised his hands in surrender as someone opened the driver's side door of the truck to pull him out. Lurch backed away from the door and allowed Jack to exit the cab and step down with his hands behind his head. They followed him back to the building, limping slowly as the blood poured from the gunshot wound in the back of his calf. Three armed men trailed behind him, guns aimed at Jack, as the other 2 awaited their arrival inside. When they got to the door, Jack backed away from it, hands still behind his head, to allow one of the other men to open the door for him. If Jack timed it right, he'd be able to grab a gun off of the one opening the door and take down all of his assailants._

_One of the henchmen tucked is firearm into the back of his pants and pushed the door open to allow Jack to enter; Jack took his opportunity to tackle him and attempt to grab the gun, but as he launched himself forward with his good leg to wrestle the guy to the ground, he was pistol whipped across the temple. Jack dropped like a rag doll on top of the henchman just as he got his hand on the grip of the Glock. _

_The goon that was pinned under Jack's body shoved him off roughly, dropping him to the ground on his back, the fresh blood that was trickling from his temple to his eye began flowing into his hairline. The tallest henchman grabbed Jack's arm just below the elbow and pulled him through the door, burning road rash into his shoulder and part of his back as he was dragged carelessly to the staged camera's frame._

"Is he…" Riley couldn't even bring herself to say the words.

Matty turned from the screen, on her phone, commanding the team that was enroute to San Diego be rerouted to Reno immediately, destination to be determined.

Mac's voice cracked as he unintentionally broke the solemn silence, "We were so close."

Matty, with her innate ability to stay focused on the task at hand, continued with orders, "Riley, send me all the properties that fit the criteria within 100 miles of Reno." She paused, looked at the feed on the wall at the cartel cronies milling around on the screen, "and run facial rec' on all those assholes. Jack didn't cause all that ruckus for nothing. Use it."

After several keystrokes and a few moments, Riley stammered, "y-yea, these guys are part of a Reno based crew. Looks like we're headed in the right direction. I can try to refresh the satellite images again to see if we can find the truck parked outside one of the eight potential properties."

Bozer wasn't sure if he was the only one looking for signs of life, or if he was just the only one that was too stricken by what just happened to do anything but balk. He watched Jack's chest, it looked like it was moving, expanding and shrinking slightly, quickly. A guy they hadn't identified yet dragged a folding metal chair to the center of the screen where the chains had previously hung. He saw this as a good sign, the front of the guy's shirt had blood on it, maybe Jack put up a good fight, and if they need a chair, they're obviously not finished.

_Two men lifted Jack by the armpits into the metal chair, pushing him back hard against the back of the chair causing the front legs to tilt off the ground momentarily. His head fell foward which pitched his whole body toward his knees, nearly dumping him back onto the ground until one of the goons grabbed him by the back of the neck to pull him back upright._

Jack's arms dangled by his side, the suspiciously placed phalanx blood dots on the back of his fingers drawing Mac's attention. "Riley, does the number 473 mean anything to any of those locations?"

"Yes, one of the building addresses outside of Reno is 473."

"That's the one! Matty, that's the building." Mac raised his voice excitedly.

"Then let's go! Come on!" Matty headed toward the door, beckoning for the other three to follow. "You can TAC up on the plane. Get a move on!"

Wordless glances among the three younger agents were exchanged, and they followed their Director out the door to be part of the rescue op.

_One man held Jack upright by the neck while another wrapped duct tape around his chest and the back of the chair, keeping him in place. They secured his hands behind his back, taping them together over the already mangled skin of his wrists. Finally each ankle was secured to a chair leg with a cruelly excessive amount of tape. He'd be lucky if he could still feel his toes. The henchmen all walked off screen, leaving Jack's unconscious form heaving with each strained breath._

On the jet, the warehouse feed remained on Riley's laptop. Nothing was happening on screen. She didn't want to touch it or be near it. She couldn't watch him struggle like that, blood streaked all over everything. What wasn't bloody was dark red with impending bruises blossoming underneath his skin. They had all the information they needed to retrieve Jack. No need to watch him this broken and defeated, he certainly would appreciate knowing that she didn't see him suffering.

Matty, Mac, Riley and Bozer strapped on TAC vests, all except Mac donning weapons. Mac himself attaching a MOLLE backed trauma kit to his front for whatever good it would do them now. He put a few other choice items into small packs on his back just in case he needed to improvise a thing or two. Their gearing up was a bit hasty, a needed distraction, but once they were dressed, there was nothing to do but sit and wait.

Bozer was the first to break the silence. "Hey Mac, where did you get that number, 473? Was that a psychic projection? Because now I know you two use weird codes and stuff, but the numbers...did he like run out of the room using a certain number of steps or something? I've still got my money on psychic connection."

"Actually," Mac seemed happy to explain, "Jack came up with this one." Mac held out his right hand and pointed to the tip of his first finger, "starting with the distal phalanx and working toward the knuckle, each phalanx represents a placeholder in a three digit number. Each finger represents a specific number. So the distal phalanx on my right pinky," he pointed to his fingernail, "represents the number 4, the middle phalanx on my left ring finger is the number 7, and the 3 is proximal phalanx on my right ring finger; that's what Jack had marked on the back of his hands."

Bozer shook his head, understanding but not comprehending.

"It's a little weird and convoluted, purposefully. No one is going to figure out that code on their own."

"But what if there were more than 3 numbers?" Bozer asked.

"There are rules for that too, but it's too complicated for right now." Mac smiled thoughtfully and looked at his fingers, picking at a rogue dry cuticle.

Riley asked the looming question, "he has blood all over his hands and wrists. Are you sure there was even a code? How do you know there weren't more numbers or different numbers?" Her worry was spiraling.

"I don't know...I just know. I have a good feeling. Maybe that psychic connection Bozer keeps talking about has some validity to it." Mac shrugged.

"Are you serious right now? Mr. Science guy is risking his best friend's life on a 'feeling' about a location? I'm about to fucking hit you right now!" Riley had fury and tears in her eyes.

"Riley! Everything we have, all of the information we've been given points to the same place. Based on probability, there's more than a 90 percent chance that that address is the one." Mac's frustration was evident in his voice as it grew louder. "If it would make you feel better, try different variations of a 4 or 5 digit number with the last digits being either 5 or 0 or both to account for the thumbs. If any of those numbers yield any result at all…" Mac's ran both hands through his hair, looking up to the roof of the jet for a moment before taking a deep breath before continuing, "it's just not likely. We're going to the right place." He stood and stormed to the bathroom to take a few moments for himself.

_The sun was starting to set. Sancola hadn't exactly set a window of time for MacGyver to turn himself in, but he grew weary of the game they were playing. The longer they stayed there in the warehouse, the more time his enemies had to find them. They were no doubt working on some sort of rescue, but El Noche's crew had covered their bases. They had done everything possible to conceal their identities and location from the Phoenix...until the escape incident. Upon realizing their identities had been compromised, El Noche became furious. He marched to his prisoner, grabbing him by the hair and yanking his head upright. "You knew what you were doing!" He yelled._

_Jack didn't respond at all, his jaw slack and eyes shut. El Noche stood slightly to the side, giving his audience a view of their friend; the blood marring so much of Jack's face, making him almost unrecognizable. Sancola pointed to something off screen, and one of his cronies retrieved a bucket. He yanked Jack's head all the way back as the other slowly poured a large bucket of water onto Jack's face. it was enough to choke him into waking up with a sputter and a cough._

_His legs and arm muscles contracted as he tried to move, but was stuck in place. It took a moment to take in his surroundings as he hacked and gurgled, trying to expel the water from his lungs. His cracked ribs ached with each cough as he tried to catch his breath, seeing stars when he finally coughed deep enough to move some of the water until he passed out again from the effort._

_El Noche poked him with the cattle prod, eliciting a weak groan but nothing more. He walked out of the frame and left Jack alone for a moment._

Mac returned to his seat a few minutes later, tugging on the bottom of his TAC vest as he sat back down. He could never understand how Jack looked and felt so comfortable wearing them over his regular clothes, to Mac it felt awkward and unnatural.

Mac sat forward in his seat when El Noche walked on screen. He tried to mentally prepare for whatever terrible things were about to happen. Mac knew they were running out of time, with 15 minutes till touch down, he was worried that they were too late. He tried not to look at his team and their reactions, tried not to look at the screen, focusing on the bottom right corner instead. He'd seen Jack at his worst, even in similar scenarios to this one, but it didn't make it easier or more tolerable; in fact, it made it worse. Mac knew Jack's limits, and while they were astronomically high compared to everyone else he'd even known, he was at his apex.

Matty kept a stern and unwavering expression, watching without blinking. Riley's tears streamed, but she was unable to form words as they manhandled and tried to drown her dad. Bozer was suddenly very interested in his shoes with his lips pursed trying to tamp down the panic every time he glanced at the screen.

Bozer cringed at the cattle prod hit that did nothing. "He's just playing possum again, right Mac? Y'all got a special code where you almost drown and cough real hard 3 times and then pretend not to wake up?"

Mac couldn't help but smile and cringe at the attempt to lighten the atmosphere. "Do you want me to lie and say yes?"

Bozer's reply was a sheepish, "yes."

"Then yes, we do." Mac flashed a grin that didn't reach his eyes and started to give a pep talk, but it was mostly to convince himself, "we're almost there, Jack is still breathing and I can tell you that he's survived worse. The TAC team is right in front of us. This nightmare is almost over, and we are going to win."

The TAC team landed first and loaded into a vehicle. Matty and the others touched down minutes later and filed into another vehicle. Their small convoy made it silently and undetected to their rendezvous site as Riley kept an eye on the video feed enroute. She saw one of the guys jab Jack in the thigh with an auto injector.

"Mac, they just injected something into his leg." She panicked.

"Probably epinephrine if they've been trying to wake him up." Mac answered matter of factly like this happens to Jack every day. "That's good, if he's alert the TAC team can locate him more easily."

"Ok then. I guess that's good." She closed the laptop as they all exited their vehicles to approach the building.

After the first bump of epinephrine, Jack still hadn't stirred. Assuming they had used a defective one, Sancola's little helper jabbed Jack's leg with a second auto injector.

Jack lifted his head with a surge of fleeting power, breathing hard and fast through clenched teeth. "Jezus fuck!" He yelled and coughed a few deep wet coughs. "Motherfucker, that hurts. You don't have to hit me any more, I'm spent. Tapping out. I give up. You win. Cartel forever. Woo! I'd raise my pompoms and cheer or throw up a white flag, whatever you want, but my hands seem to be taped behind me."

"Shut up!" Sancola yelled from another corner of the room.

"Aaaaw, you didn't leave me. I'm really feeling the love." Not one to waste a song opportunity, Jack loudly belted, "Can you feel the love tonight." Before going into a fit of wracking coughs.

One of the TAC team had a listening device pressed to the door, "Someone's singing." He announced quietly over the coms to everyone.

Riley suddenly exploded with silent emotion and tears, wrapping her arms around Mac as tightly as she could. They shared a teary glance and smiles before taking their position on the C side of the building while the TAC team prepared to enter the A side. With the TAC lead's cue, Mac cut the power to the building while the TAC team breached the door with a bang.

"Oh shit! Cavalry's here." Jack spoke aloud to himself, relieved as he tipped the chair as hard as he could to the side to knock it over and get lower to the ground to avoid friendly fire.

Mac flipped the lights back on less than a minute later and ran to the A side door. Sancola and all of his goons were each held at gunpoint by a team member as the other 4 Phoenix agents entered.

Mac and Riley closed the distance between the entrance and Jack with unheard of speed. Riley slid on her knees to where Jack was lying, she grabbed his face in her hands, "I've never been so happy to see you in my life." She started as tears flowed freely down her cheeks.

"Let's get you up and out of this chair." Mac announced from behind Jack.

"Oh God, Mac!" Jack turned his head as far as he could, just to try to get eyes on his partner to make sure he was there and not some weird hallucination. "I was sure you'd turn yourself over to these assholes."

"Can't say I didn't try." Mac told him, lifting the chair back to upright with Riley's help. He immediately started cutting the tape from behind to free Jack.

Jack asked Riley, "Didja knock some sense into him? Sit on him? Take away his car keys?" The relief was evident in his voice despite Jack's short rushed breaths. "Nah, he could make a car out of some driftwood, gum, and turpentine." His words were cut short by a coughing fit.

Riley tried to pull the tape gently from his bare chest, starting with his arms and going inward, hoping he was distracted enough not to notice, "nah, we just had him followed. Everywhere."

Mac rolled his eyes at her.

"I'm so glad y'all are here. I have to admit, I'd begun to give up hope that y'all were watching or that you missed my clues."

"Nope, we got them, loud and clear. That's how we found you." Mac announced.

Riley shook her head, still in disbelief, "I still can't believe you guys speak a whole other language that no one else even noticed." Riley leaned in for a hug as Mac cut Jack's hands free. He pulled her in tight, further comforting her with three heavy handed back pats. When she pulled away, her hair was stuck to the duct tape still across his chest. She plucked them back, one hair at a time while awkwardly leaning over.

"You just gotta rip it off like a bandaid." Jack told her.

"You or me?" She drew up her eyebrow with the question.

He matched her eyebrow raise with his own, "both. You first."

She yanked her hair back, leaving behind a dozen broken strands. He grabbed his tape and pulled it left to right with a gasp followed by labored panting.

"I thought I'd feel better," he coughed, "if I could move." Jack lamented. "How much longer...till I have my legs, Mac?"

Mac answered from underneath the chair, "just a second, but it looks like you've got a bullet hole in your leg, no exit wound. Probably shouldn't walk on it." He unwrapped the duct tape from Jack's jeans.

"Can't even feel it." He coughed more, having difficulty catching his breath. "Heart is racing. I guess this was...more down to the wire...than usual."

"Medevac will be landing in a minute to load you up." Mac put a steadying hand on Jack's shoulder. He thought he was reassuring Jack, but it was more for his own benefit. Every molecule in his body wanted to wrap his arms around Jack, hear his heart still beating, feel him breathe, and he was sure Jack wanted to so the same. But it would have to wait just a little longer since neither one of them was ready to have an emotional breakdown just yet.

"Can I walk out?" He breathed heavily two times, "show these fucksticks that they can't break Jack Dalton." He pleaded with doe eyes. "Plus I got two living breathing crutches right here if I need."

"Ok," Mac agreed reluctantly, "let's get you up." His kids flanked him on either side with hands ready as he stood. Jack stood up slowly and swayed, head dipping and jerking back up. "Hey, take it easy, big guy." Mac soothed with a hand on his back. "Lean on us if you need to."

The three hobbled through the warehouse toward the door where Medevac was landing outside. Matty was having a stare down with Sancola with her gun drawn. One of the TAC team was behind him securing the zip tie around his wrist.

"Hey boss lady." Jack nodded to Matty as they approached on their way out the door.

She turned her head toward him with a grin she reserved for infants and puppies. "Good to see you, Jack." She motioned to her own forehead with her left hand. "You've got a little something on your..."

Jack found the smudge of dirt on his forehead, the only place on his face that wasn't bloodied. He licked his finger to wipe it off and flashed a crooked but fond smile back at her, "Thanks."

Matty watched the three agents make their way out the door, then her smile dropped as she turned her attention back to El Noche. "I don't know how you got out again, but I'm going to make sure you and your entire cartel go down for good now. No one takes or even threatens my agents without my my wrath. We've gone easy on you before, but after what you did today, you are done."

"I'll get out, and I'll hunt down all of your agents this time." He spoke with venom.

"Oh really. Is that what you think?" Matty questioned with a tilt of her head

"I know." He replied.

"Ok then. We showed mercy by not taking out each and every one of your little crew today. We don't operate under the government, we are our own operation. No one knows we're here. We could put you all down like rabid animals and no one would know until someone smelled your rotting corpses in this building. And as much as I hate to admit it, I have a real soft spot for Dalton. If he happened to find out where you were being held, I don't think anyone would fault him for paying you a visit. To talk."

"I'm not afraid of you." Sancola stared her down for a moment and then spoke to one of his associates in Spanish.

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" Matty chided. "You're seriously telling your guy over there to fight back and create a diversion in Spanish as if no one else in here speaks Spanish? Are you really dumb enough to think we're that daft? Or do you just want us to think you're stupid and catch us off guard. It's not an invalid tactic; I mean that is how we found you." She shook her head and sighed, "I need this idiot out of my sight before I do something he'll regret."

Sancola just sneered and lunged at her with a growl.

She didn't flinch, but she waited a moment and fired her Glock. He fell to the ground curling up around his middle, bleeding from the groin.

"No one messes with my agents, Mr. Sancola. And that," she indicated to his bleeding crotch, "was for messing up Jack's perfect little nose." He groaned and rolled on the floor. "And I'm sorry, there's no room on the Medevac, you'll just have to ride in the back of the paddy wagon with your little friends, but don't worry, if we find your dick on the ground, we'll put it on ice for you."

Mac and Riley helped Jack step into the Medevac helicopter. It was the biggest one they'd been on thus far, suitable for several patients, just in case the rescue didn't go as planned.

"All right, Jack, hop up." Mac directed him to the awaiting stretcher inside the aircraft.

"I'm good. Can I just sit in a chair?" Jack coughed a few times, it was wet and had a rattle, "I don't want to lie down, been kinda stuck in one spot for a while. Feeling antsy."

One of the medics, a red headed woman, shook her head with an apologetic smirk, "Sorry. But I will see what we can do about avoiding the straps. They're kind of required while we're in the air, but I think we can work around it. I'll angle the head so you can at least sit up."

Jack deflated like a disappointed toddler and took a seat. He scooted back until his legs fit on the bed. Mac and Riley took a few steps back to give them room, but didn't leave. Mac just needed to keep him in view, make sure he was really there. That was the only way for Mac to internalize that the nightmare was actually over. They were ALL safe. They were ALL going home.

"You're Jack, right?" the redhead asked him, and he affirmed with a single nod. "I'm Nadine. I've heard a lot about you." She didn't mean for it to come off as flirty as it sounded and blushed. She refused to make eye contact as she attached the leads to his chest. "They mentioned a possible GSW too?"

"Yeah." he bent the knee of his uninjured leg up toward him and pointed to the outstretched one. The male medic, whose credentials indicated his name was Justin, came to assess and dress the leg. Jack's pants were still uncomfortably damp which made it more difficult for Justin to cut the pants leg up to Jack's knee. Jack was sweating and breathing quickly, throwing out the occasional coughing fit. The heel on his bent leg bouncing up and down rapidly like a nervous fidget, but Jack had nothing to be nervous about.

Riley attributed it to the fact he'd been unable to move much for so long. She didn't like seeing him so twitchy and uncomfortable, and she really hated seeing his face so bloody, so she approached him while the medics did their thing. "Hate to bother you, but do you have something I can… like...clean some of this up with?" she asked no one in particular.

"We'll tend to the lacerations shortly, unless there's one that needs our attention now?" Nadine answered with distracted frown as she watched the trace of his heart rhythm on the monitor.

"No, I mean, yea there are some small ones, but most of this is from his nose. I just want to, like, wipe it off." Riley explained. Nadine tossed her some wipes with her free hand, the other curled around Jack's wrist, comparing his pulse rate with what the monitor was telling her. With the gentlest and most tentative touch, Riley started cleaning Jack's cheek. "Does it hurt? Is this ok?"

Jack chuckled, "Aren't you sweet? Tryin' to make your old pop look beautiful again."

Mac came out of nowhere with his unintentional dig, "gonna need a lot more than wipes for that."

Jack raised an eyebrow, "Ouch, and there's Mac out of the blue giving the 3rd degree burn."

"No, that's not what I meant." Mac backpedaled, "It's-it's broken."

"Well no shit, Sherlock." Jack's sassy head wiggle made him dizzier than he'd anticipated. "Maybe that's why I can't hardly breathe out of my nose and my whole face feels like it's on fire. But how's it look? Honestly?"

Mac's eyes widened at being put on the spot and he stammered. "Looks like…" he grabbed his phone and snapped a pic, flipping the phone around to show Jack.

Jack touched under his darkening eyes and pressed the tender area around his nose while looking at the still on the phone.

"Oh god. How am I ever going to pick up a woman looking like one of the Hanson triplets?"

Riley raised a questioning brow, continuing to gingerly wipe blood from his cheek, "that blonde mmm bop boyband from the 90s?"

"No!" Jack rubbed his free hand across his tightening chest, his other arm occupied by Nadine obtaining a blood pressure. Jack feigned anger and frustration, "the hockey players. From Slap Shot. You know, Paul Newman, a shitty hockey team, stripper music."

"I have no idea what your old people pop culture references are." She grasped his chin gently to turn his head toward her. Their eyes met and they shared an affectionate smile.

"Hey, Jack," Nadine interrupted the moment after exchanging a look with Justin. "Do me a favor, sit back, take a couple of deep breaths."

Mac's brow furrowed as he watched the silent communication between two partners, thrown into life and death situations daily, only rarely their lives and deaths. Justin watched the monitor for a few seconds before he turned back to his kit.

His eyes fell on Jack's, no longer distracted by the frank relief of the rescue, he now saw Jack's pale, sweaty face. The way Jack's chest heaved with each breath.

Jack met his eyes, and gave a small shake of his head.

Nadine tied a tourniquet around Jack's bicep as she prepared to start an IV. "How are you feeling?"

"Be honest, Jack," Mac said, his voice low with concern.

Jack coughed again. "Not- not so great." He closed his eyes as Nadine slid the needle into his skin.

"Can you be a little more descriptive?" Nadine asked, securing the port with tape and attaching him to fluids.

"Kinda feels like something is trying to bust out of my chest Aliens style."

"Short of breath?"

Jack coughed.

Justin wrapped a nasal cannula around his ears, situating the prongs in Jack's nose and cranking the flow rate.

"Your heart's racing away right now."

"That would explain it. Nadine, you set my heart a fluttering."

"More like sustained v-tach than fluttering. Jack, bear down. Like you're trying to have a bowel movement."

Jack's eyes widened, "oh honey, I haven't even seen a bathroom since yesterday, I wouldn't trust that move one bit."

"The action might induce a vasovagal response and slow your heart rate." She explained, diligently studying the monitors.

"Ooh I like when you talk dirty."

She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, with the serious look of his Nana holding the wooden spoon.

"Come on, Jack." Mac caught on and scolded him, knowing that Jack's playfulness was just him overcompensating for how truly awful he felt. "Let's drop the creepy old man joke routine for now."

Jack gave a pained, insulted look and obeyed, pressing down internally through his back and core. His eyes took on a glassy look before rolling back, eyelids fluttered closed.

"He's in v-fib," Nadine shouted as the heart monitor began wailing. "Get him flat."

"What's happening?" Riley jumped back, hands in the air as Justin pulled the emergency CPR handle that lowered the cot into a supine position and deflated the mattress into a firm surface. Nadine felt frantically at his neck. "Mac?" Riley's voice was frantic and fearful.

"No pulse," Nadine yelled as she lunged forward, hands in position on Jack's chest and began CPR.

Mac's eyes flitted around the aircraft, putting together the pieces and looking for anything to contradict what he was afraid of.

"Riley, grab the ambu bag," Nadine instructed between breaths as she continued compressions. "You're certified," she reminded, seeing the way Riley's face blanched at the request. "Make a 'C' with your thumb and forefinger to create a seal. Fingers under his jaw. Tilt his head back. Good," she encouraged. "When I get to thirty you're gonna give Jack two breaths."

Riley licked her lips and looked up at Mac as her eyes pleaded for reassurance and assistance.

"Mac's got a different job," Nadine caught his eye. "Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty."

Riley jumped hearing the countdown and squeezed the bag in succession, watching Jack's chest rise and fall. She pulled back the mask, sucking in her own breaths in double time as her palms began to sweat.

"Mac, you got a watch?"

He nodded, fingers tracing the watch face of the black Luminox on his wrist. A gift from Jack after the previous one, a constant reminder of paternal abandonment, became a sore spot between them.

"You're going to keep an eye on the time. Let us know when it's three minutes between med doses."

"AED is set up," Justin said. "Everybody clear."

Nadine grabbed Riley, making sure she wasn't touching the cot as Justin instructed them again to remain clear and delivered the shock.

Jack's body arched from the cot. Riley's back slammed into the wall, pulling away to distance herself from the painful reality she was witnessing. Mac stared at the luminescent green second hand of his watch, the action in his periphery unbearable.

"Alright, let's go," Nadine said, hands on Jack's chest again, pressing hard against his sternum. as Justin readied the medications to give to Jack.

Riley glanced down at Jack, listening to Nadine count aloud, and gave the next two breaths, tears blurring in her eyes. It seemed like the world stopped, like she was watching the action from afar. Riley's hands were not her own and that certainly wasn't Jack, the surreal scene playing out in front of her couldn't be…real. She blinked deliberately to acknowledge the nightmare so she could shake free from it and wake up; she almost missed his eyelids fluttering.

"He's awake," she yelled.

"Rhythm check."

Nadine turned to look at the monitor while Justin's fingers felt the pulse on his neck.

"Looks like ROSC. Jack, can you hear me?" Nadine's voice raised to command her patient's attention.

He moaned.

"Dalton," Nadine barked.

His eyes opened and searched the room, brow furrowed with confusion.

"Do you know your name?" Nadine asked, leaning further into his field of vision.

He answered confidently, "of course I know my name. Jack."

"Do you know what day it is?" She continued.

"No, not really."

"Do you know where you are?"

He pondered for a moment, "473."

Mac exploded with an audible sigh of relief. The medics exchanged puzzled glances until Mac clarified, "473 is the address on the building. He was never actually aware of our geographical location. That's great, Jack!"

"Mac, you ok?" Jack asked, searching for Mac blindly with his arm. Mac closed the distance with two giant steps, taking Jack's hand between his own, mindful of the broken skin and injured wrist.

"Yes, Jack, I'm fine." Mac met his eyes and couldn't hide the smile that reached all the way to his own.

Jack reciprocated with an equally affectionate grin, "you sure? 'Cuz you look like you've seen a ghost."

Riley ran her fingers gently through the front of Jack's hair, "he's fine, just worried about you."

He turned his attention to her, nuzzling into her hand before closing his eyes again, his smile faded with an exhaled puff.

"Jack?" The panic immediately apparent in Riley's voice.

The medics monitoring his stats didn't seem alarmed. "His rhythm is stable, he's just resting," Nadine reassured her.


	7. The Ring and the Valium

Riley rounded the bed to join Mac on the other side, she was torn between wanting to stay close to Jack, drawing comfort from maintaining physical contact, and staying out of the way for the professionals to take care of him. She buried her face in the crook of Mac's neck and he did the same. She felt how tense his neck and shoulders were, rubbing a hand up and down his flank with futility through the TAC vest to attempt to relax him. He squeezed her tighter and she felt his tears on her shirt collar. After a long moment they unlatched from each other, each taking a step back. Riley looked down, unstrapping the velcro from the sides of her TAC vest as Mac did the same.

They discarded the gear into a vacant jump seat and stood around nervously awaiting instruction...direction...information, anything to break the tension. They inched slowly back toward Jack's side, not taking their eyes off him, wondering how far they would get before someone asked them to get out of the way. Mac slid his hand under Jack's as Riley placed hers on top and rubbed his knuckle just behind his ring.

"It's so hideous." she tried to smile as she stared at the gaudy hunk of white gold Jack cherished.

Mac was caught off guard by the comment, lost in his own thoughts for a moment, "huh?"

"This." she twisted it on Jack's finger before carefully sliding it off and onto her own index finger. She held it up to admire it on her own hand and smiled.

"You should probably hang on to that for him." Mac encouraged, "better than it sitting in a property bag."

The short ride to the nearest hospital was agonizing for the agents as they listened to Justin radio in to the hospital to prepare for their arrival. Nadine strapped Jack down to the bed. She'd promised she would do what she could to avoid that, but Jack no longer had a say in that as he swayed side to side slightly with every bump and jostle on the ride. The persistent beeping of the machines, even without the alarms blaring, was unnerving and a constant reminder that they could go south any moment as they had previously. Hearing the sitrep Justin broadcast over the radio, though they'd actually seen it as it happened, tightened like a vice in Mac's gut. They only touched on the highlights, the things that needed immediate attention-the things that would kill you fastest, but it felt like he was briefing them forever.

Upon landing, there had been no change in status, good or bad. Mac accepted the lack of change with optimism after learning that Jack had overdosed on epinephrine after the TAC team recovered two spent auto-injectors; he went down in the right place at the right time, and it was drug induced instead of an underlying health issue. While it certainly wasn't an all clear by any means, it was a relief to know Jack wasn't actively dying prior to being kidnapped.

The flurry of activity once they landed was dizzying. Mac and Riley, tucked into a corner of the helicopter, watched a herd of medical professionals whisk their partner away through sliding doors leaving a mess of bloody cloths, discarded wrappers, and used equipment in their wake. After the pilot shut down his aircraft, he joined the agents in the back. They weren't sure where to go or what to do, lost in a weird limbo of waiting.

"I'm not trying to kick you out, seriously, take your time, but once my crew returns, we are going to start cleaning up this mess, and you probably don't want to be here for that."

Riley nodded a wordless acknowledgement, hoping Bozer and Matty were only minutes behind them to share in the solemn solidarity.

Despite the preemptive rundown the receiving ER was given, Mac and Riley knew there would be extensive questions they didn't want to think about. The Phoenix would handle technical questions while they were stuck with the personal questions, reliving and recalling every punch, cut, and loss of consciousness, each detail racking up the already long list of tests, scans, and procedures ordered.

Hours ticked by at an agonizingly slow pace, updates came few and far between, and those came only when Matty used her mom voice with the administrators to get some answers. A battery of tests, CT for concussion, chest x-rays, resetting bones, cleaning and stitching wounds, who knew what else was going on. After several long hours, they were finally told they could see Jack.

He was still in the ICU, the nurse warned them, "go one at a time and keep it short and sweet. He's lightly sedated, so he may or may not feel up for visitors. Let him rest." There was no question of who would go first.

It was jarringly cold in the room, but Mac was glad to see that they'd cleaned him up; Jack was no longer covered head to toe in blood. The gown was loosely draped over his torso, concealing bandages and cardiac leads. He was covered up to his abdomen with a light blanket, the silver splint across his nose was flanked on either side by heavy dark purple circles under both eyes that were underlined by the tubing from the nasal cannula.

The lack of buzzing energy coming off of Jack was the most difficult thing for Mac to handle. His best friend, the most reliable and self sufficient person Mac had ever known, was down for the count.

Mac approached the side of the bed and pulled a small chair over with his leg. The screech it made as the legs skidded across the ground made Mac flinch, but Jack didn't move a bit.

"Hey big guy." Mac hooked his hand around Jack's fingers, mindful of the temporary splints and bandages covering both wrists up to his knuckles. "You did great today. We would have never found you...or them, if you hadn't been so damn clever and resourceful." The tears unexpectedly rolled down Mac's cheeks. "I don't know what I'd do without you. Before today, I'd never even considered us not going out together in a 'blaze o' glory,'" he playfully mocked Jack's accent, "There are so many uncertainties in life and this job, but one thing I could always count on was that Jack would always be there. That you would always be there. You were invincible. Even when they were...when they were...hurting you, you stood tall and you took it. And when you...when you...in the helicopter. I just, I felt my...it felt like half of me disintegrated."

He ran his shirt sleeve across his cheeks to dry them and smiled, "I see why you hate doing this," he smiled at the thought of waking up to Jack's bedside vigil so many times, "I'm sorry for ever putting you through it." Mac sat another minute staring at their hands. "I'm going to let someone else come in now; I don't want to monopolize all the one sided conversations." Mac squeezed his hand and wiped his tears one last time before he walked out the door to allow Riley to enter.

While Mac had a visceral and nervous reaction, Riley's was very emotionally charged. Mac wanted to get out of the room and pretend nothing had ever happened, like everything was fine; he preferred to ignore reality just a little longer. Riley broke down. She put her hands on Jack's arm, his hair, his shoulder, any part that looked like it wouldn't hurt to touch. She had to touch him to make sure he was still there, to ground her and remind her that he was Jack, he was still invincible, he was larger than life, and he was going to be ok.

She fluffed his hair back a few times, smiling through tears as she admired how gray it had become. She'd first met Jack when he had a ridiculously thick mane of dark brown hair and a full intimidating beard to go with it. The beard would come and go, sometimes it would turn into a goatee, sometimes a creepy moustache, but it always represented his unwavering virility. Now that it was gray, it felt more like a representation of his wisdom and survival skills instead of wear and tear and old age. She loved and cared for him more than any other man she'd known, but didn't know how to show him outside of ribbing and playful teasing. She decided to make it a point to remind him how much she loved him, as a father figure and friend, once he was lucid enough to make fun of her for it. She wasn't sure how long she was in there, resting her head on his bicep, minding the brace on his broken wrist, but it must have been a while because Bozer peeked in the door to check on her.

Visitation rules be damned, he entered the room and placed his arm around her shoulder with a gentle squeeze. "I'll be out there if you need anything." He released her shoulder and headed toward the door.

"Stay." she stopped him with one word.

Bozer attempted to occupy his mind with anything else he could, the situation was awkward for him. His relationship with Jack had always been a fun and friendly one, like a big brother or a mentor. When he found out about the "think tank" being anything but, it changed Bozer's perception of his friends, but not his expectations.

The fun and teasing big brother Jack morphed into a protector, so he still had the same role, it was just more important and natural now that Bozer was in on the secret.

He counted wires and tubes and wondered what they did. He was pretty sure he knew what they actually did, but preferred to come up with something more fun. That one over there supplies the Super Soldier Serum, but it wasn't blue because Jack gave up the brightly colored liquids when he found out mac was sensitive to some food dyes.

That one is measuring the midichlorian count, he mused. The one over there is counting...Bozer ran out of pop culture references way too quickly for his own liking. He's a master at this, he and… Jack. Of course. Without his partner in geeky movie trivia he was just paddling the boat in circles. Bozer's shoulders sagged a little and he let out an inadvertent sigh. "He's gonna be ok. Just needs a little time to get better." He squeezed Riley's shoulders reassuringly, mostly to convince himself, and left the room.

When the door opened a few minutes later, Riley thought one of her friends had returned, but it was actually their cue to leave. They were told that they could return later, after 5:00 p.m, and that it would do them no good to wait around at the hospital. The team was assured that Jack was stable, and that their own doctor from the Phoenix would be there shortly to check Jack over and tell them himself.

They'd officially been wearing the same clothes for over 24 hours at that point. It was time to change, if not for the stale smell, but for the constant reminder of the brutality of the previous day. Riley's black shirt didn't display the blood as obviously, but it was apparent and garish on the front of Mac's light blue shirt and on his sleeve.

Matty told them the name of their hotel and instructed her 3 younger agents to get something to eat and wash up. Stoic silence followed the trio until they'd finally managed to pass a couple of hours picking at plates of food, ordering fancy coffees, and walking around the grounds of the hotel in a feeble attempt to absorb some of the rejuvenating sunshine from the bright and cloudless afternoon.

Mac and Bozer shared a hotel room, and Riley had her own. After a quick shower and a towel drying of her hair, Riley was in a hurry to get back to the other boys and knocked on the adjoining door to quell her feeling of discomfort from being alone. They tried to get some sleep, all three stretched horizontally across one bed, unable to tolerate being more than an arm's reach from one another, but rest didn't come.

"What if he wakes up alone?" Riley finally broke the silence.

"I don't think he'll wake up." Mac added.

Riley raised her eyebrows in astonishment, why would he say such a thing? Mac rethought his words, rolled onto his right side to face her propping his head up on his elbow, and corrected himself, "I think he'll rest. He was out hard; he went through a lot and is heavily medicated right now. I don't know if he would even be lucid enough to notice-to notice we're not there."

"I know you're trying to rationalize not being there because we don't have any control in the situation, but I'm...I'm not ok not being there. I know you're not either."

"I know, but there's nothing we can do about it. And stressing yourself out about it isn't helping anyone. Come here." Mac opened his arms toward her and she inched her way to him, finally resting her head on his chest and the crook of his shoulder. He wrapped that arm around her back and motioned for Bozer to move closer, sensing her need for comforting contact. Bozer rested his hand on her shoulder with a gentle back and forth rub. Her hand sat in the center of Mac's chest, Jack's gigantic ring on her index finger, soothed by the steady thrum reverberating in her ear and under her palm.

After a marathon thirtysomething hours awake and stressed to their limits, one by one, they each dozed off. A buzzing phone jerked Mac out of his sleep as he silenced it immediately from his pocket, hoping not to wake his peaceful partners. He fished the phone from his pocket and moved his head side to side slowly to attempt to dislodge rogue strands of Riley's hair that had become stuck to his chin and mouth.

Mac blinked the dryness from his eyes and brought his phone in close to his face to read the message from Matty informing them that they could return to the hospital. He inched upward slowly to slide out from underneath Riley, smiling at the positioning of his friends. Bozer and Riley were lying pressed together, back to back with legs intertwined, or as Jack would say, like kids tuckered out after a long day of playing in the woods. Mac snickered to himself at the thought, remembering how Jack would get annoyed at their behavior and felt alienated by his age when they'd quote vines or talk about things he'd never even heard of; he'd cross his arms in a pout and tell them to "go play in the woods," a throwback to his own childhood when kids spent most of their time outside unsupervised being loud, leading to a low parental tolerance for indoor rowdiness and a willful banishment to play outside-A vicious circle of latchkey kids doing dumb shit nobody knew about and in turn hovering and helicoptering over their own children decades later. Jack felt that Mac's abandonment had made him an honorary member of the forgotten kids of genx too, with the outdoor survival skill and contradictory lack of self preservation to back it up.

Mac splashed water on his face, tugging on the dark circles under his eyes to get a better look at how bloodshot and red his eyes were. Jack wasn't going to like that one bit. After gently waking his comrades, they shuttled back to the hospital to meet with Dr. McClain.

Huddled in a small vacant office, Dr. McClain had already given Matty a thorough breakdown of Jack's condition and asked the younger three agents if they wanted the same spiel or just the cliff notes. Bozer and Riley looked to Mac for guidance. The thought of hearing the laundry list of injuries again made Mac's stomach turn. He'd heard enough upon their initial arrival at the hospital to turn his blonde hair prematurely gray, "We'll take the abridged version."

"We are holding off on the bullet removal until we're certain he's stable enough for surgery. You, Mac, as power of attorney, have some decisions to make."

Mac's face paled upon hearing those words and his stomach again threatened to rebel at the thought of making important life decisions for someone else.

"No, son, it's not what you're thinking." Dr. McClain assured him, earning a collective sigh of relief from the other occupants of the room. "Once he's deemed stable enough, they can remove the bullet here or we can move him back to the Phoenix and take care of it there. Back home."

"That sounds great."

"The flight is just over two hours, but that kind of...confinement may not be the best for his mental state after that kind of ordeal. I'll let you think about it, talk it over with him if you'd like."

"He's awake?" Mac's eyes lit up, "talking?"

"Not exactly. When I was examining him, he wasn't exactly lucid or reacting to my actions or my questions, but he would mumble fondly about a ferret named Gus occasionally."

"He wants to go home. Does he still think he's…" Mac swallowed, struggling to get the words out, "being held captive?"

"I doubt that. He wasn't in distress."

"Well he wants me to fake an illness to cause a distraction so he...so WE can escape. That's what he was saying about the ferret; it's a code. I guess he does want to go home."

"Ok then. I can get the cogs turning on the LA end. We'll take the bullet out and get him a walking boot for that broken fibula since crutches are out with the one broken wrist and the torn ligaments and dislocation in the other. Lucky for him, the break was his non dominant hand, and the other is bruised and swollen, but should heal well along with the damage to the skin on his wrists and thumbs."

"The electrical burns and cuts on the abdomen, and also the scrapes on the back were mostly superficial, no stitches, but the one on his temple needed a few and also came with a concussion. Broken nose a few broken ribs. But I know what you're waiting to hear from me, so I'll get to the point." Dr. McClain took a deep breath, "

"We thoroughly checked everything that we could look at- cardiac MRI, transesophageal echocardiogram," the doctor stopped at the collective cringe from his audience, "and everything looks beautiful. The quick actions of you guys and the medics paid off. There doesn't appear to be any permanent damage to his heart. I'm waiting on a few more blood tests and reviews of the scans by the cardiologist before giving an official thumbs up, but it's looking good."

The relief in the air was apparent and refreshing.

"That doesn't mean that anything will be easy, not by a long shot. There's a lot of PT in store, not to mention the psychological aspect that we haven't even been able to assess yet, but that's another problem for another day. Let's focus on the positive for now."

When Mac entered the room in ICU for a second time, Jack was still sleeping peacefully. He looked better to Mac, if only slightly since he was still black and blue from head to toe. The bruises had finally set in, and they were dark, but the rest of his skin had regained a lot of its color. Mac approached the bed silently and heard strange sounds. Humming? The machines all seemed to be silenced, but he still heard a faint noise.

Mac whispered, "Jack? You awake?"

"Hmm?" was Jack's barely audible response as he continued to hum where he'd left off.

"Are you awake?" He asked again, "well obviously you are, I'm just trying to be polite," Mac grumbled. "Unless sleep humming is a thing for you, and honestly I wouldn't be surprised by that at all."

Jack responded by humming the same tune, and adding words in every once in a while. "They just don't appreciate that you get tired. They're so hard to satisfy. You can tranquilize your mind. So go running for the shelter of a mother's little helper. And four help you through the night." He sang quietly with his eyes still closed.

"I don't know that one, Jack." Mac interrupted.

Jack sang a little louder, words still slurred, "Help to minimize your plight. Doctor please, some more of these. Outside the door she took four more. What a drag, it's getting old." He opened his eyes. "Hey, Mac!" he drawled as his smile reached his heavy lidded eyes.

"It's good to see you." Mac told him as he took a seat next to the bed.

"Ditto." he rumbled, groggily, "Feels like I haven't seen you in a week. Shit, has it been a week?" the words were low and drawn out, like highly intoxicated Jack, just before he reaches passed out on the floor Jack. "How you been?"

"I'm fine." Mac laughed.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course. One hundred percent intact."

"If you're ok, whaddar ya doin in the hospital? An' lookin like refried dog shit?" Jack managed to make eye contact with his partner to flash an accusatory look to go with the statement, but it just made Mac snicker. A burst blood vessel in Jack's right eye made him look even more wrecked than before, yet he was still concerned about Mac.

"I'm not in the hospital, well inside, yes that's technically true, but I'm here for you. I'm not hurt at all. See." Mac put his arms out to the side and turned around in a circle. "I'm good."

"I don't believe you." Jack stared him down, narrowing one eye slightly for emphasis.

"Uh," Mac stammered, not really having a way to win this argument with a drugged up Jack, "well I do have a paper cut on my finger and a blister on my toe from wearing these boots for an entire day. I didn't have the right socks on."

"Yep. See. I told ya'." Jack closed his eyes with a satisfied grin. "I got a pad for that blister in the first aid kit in my car."

"Ok, Jack. I'll take care of that ASAP."

"Good." Jack closed his eyes and Mac thought he had dozed off again. "Are you gonna give me a hug, or do I have to come take one."

"Of course, Jack, but you're a walking bruise, I don't want to hurt you."

"Walking? Nah. Not me. Got a bullet in my leg they ain't took out yet."

"I'm sorry." Mac apologized.

"You're gonna be if you don't get in here and gimmie a fuckin hug, boy."

Mac did his best to touch as little of Jack as possible, sliding his hands behind Jack and feeling the warm skin of his back and the large bandage covering the road rash. Jack pulled him in tight, almost causing Mac to lose his balance, but he finally caved and relaxed into the hug as Jack squeezed and gave him two heavy back pats before cradling the back of Mac's head with his hand. Mac gave a light squeeze back with a sigh of relief that blew warm across Jack's shoulder, as Mac felt a warm tear from Jack fall into his hair.

Mac felt Jack take a sharp inhale as he released the hug followed by a coughing fit that lasted too long for Mac's comfort. When he finished, Jack sunk back into the bed, red faced. "Fuck!" He was panting. "That She-hulk, Nadine, broke my damn ribs. I'm pretty fuckin high right now, but that shit still hurts. Ugh."

"Should I get a nurse?" Mac was near panic.

"Nah, I'm fine. Just hurts."

"I'll go get someone." Mac bolted out of the room before Jack could protest further, summoning a nurse that insisted Mac stay outside while she checked on Jack.

Mac took a seat next to his friends and pulled out his phone to figure out what Jack had been singing earlier. After a quick search he came up with a wikipedia page talking about how Mother's Little Helper by the Rolling Stones was about the trend of valium abuse among housewives in the 60s. Mac's short cackle drew attention to him.

"What's so funny, Mac?" Riley asked.

The nurse exited Jack's room and Mac stopped her. "Excuse me, nurse, are y'all giving Jack valium by chance?"

"Yes. Is there a problem?"

"Not at all. Thank you for your help." Mac smiled at her with amusement and sincerity.

"I'll be back in a few minutes." The nurse announced.

Riley looked to Mac, "seriously, what's so funny?"

"When I went in there, Jack was humming a song about moms taking valium."

Mac expected her to laugh, but Riley's face blanched. "Mac, he's still giving clues. What if he thinks he's still being held and tortured and…"

For just a moment, Mac considered that scenario, his stomach turned and his mouth felt dry. He slowed his breathing and reconsidered what he just saw in that room. "No, he was...he was ok, a little loopy, but he was good.

"But Mac, he took all that shit before and maintained his macho bravado bullshit. How do we know he knows he's safe?" Riley questioned insubordinately.

"He knew I was there; he hugged me." Mac protested, letting the feeling of doubt worm its way into his brain. Riley went to check for herself.

Upon entering, she saw Jack's face scrunched in pain with his arms wrapped around his ribs. When he saw her, he dropped his arms to his side and smiled, bravado firmly back in place. "You're much prettier than the other nurse," he joked.

"Jack." She scolded. "Not funny. If you weren't already so fucked up, I'd slap you."

"Go ahead, I can't feel it anyway!" He teased.

"You're infuriating." She tried to hold back a smile. He held his arms out toward her and she closed the gap between them immediately. She hesitated for a moment trying to come up with a good way to hold him, recalling the obvious pain he was in when she first walked in. She wrapped her hand around his fingers on his least damaged hand and leaned in to brush a gentle kiss on his forehead right on top of his flattened hair.

She stood back up, not releasing the grip on his hand, and fluffed the front of his hair with her free hand.

"There you go again, always trying to make me pretty." Jack blushed.

The sudden recollection of the incident in the Medevac made her breath hitch, and she tried to recover quickly with a tease, "You're beyond help right now."

"I don't know, I've got that Brad Pitt in Fight Club thing going on." He pawed at the silver brace across his nose.

"Maybe middle aged Brad Pitt." She smiled.

"Still Brad Pitt though." He stifled a wet cough, holding his breath to try to contain it. She could see him struggle to hold it in, wincing in pain as the nurse walked back in looking very cross.

"You have to get it out." The nurse chided.

"But it hurts." He whined, still holding his breath and clenching his teeth.

Riley slipped silently back out the door and cringed as she heard a coughing fit so violent and long that she was pretty sure she heard him gag and vomit at the end of it.

The three agents stared at the door in anticipation, waiting for the nurse to emerge from the room.

Bozer looked concerned, "Is he...ok?"

The nurse responded with a facial shrug, "yes, actually. Much better than expected. We're treating for pneumonia with antibiotics, but he's still got to cough it out. With so many broken ribs and the," she searched for the appropriate word, "cuts across his abdomen, it going to be an unpleasant process." She nodded toward the vials in her hand, "I'm going to have these labs run for your doctor, and see what we can do about getting out of ICU."

Dr. McClain rounded a corner a short while later, "great news. Jack's heart looks good. The incident on the Medevac was definitely a result of an overdose of epinephrine, and not some underlying issue. We've got several EKGs from the physicals administered by the Phoenix over the years to compare, and it looks like Jack is still doing well, better than expected. We can move out of ICU and arrange to get back to LA soon if that's what you choose."

The theesome excitedly pulled each other into a celebratory hug. Once they released, the doctor pulled Mac to the side to speak with him privately.

"Have you made a decision?" Dr. McClain asked Mac.

"Yeah, I think going home is probably a good choice. If nothing else, for the fact that we just took down some key leaders in a cartel. Us staying here puts everyone else here in danger."

"Ok, but there's one other thing we need to talk about." The doctor was no longer excited. "The trip on the air ambulance is just over 2 hours. Two hours where Jack will have to stay on that gurney, secured. So we need to think about the psychological aspect. I'm afraid that after being held captive for a day and tortured, then confined to a bed due to injury, that being strapped to a gurney for a two hour flight may cause unwanted stress. We're easing up on the medication now, he's more lucid and gaining awareness and will continue to do so." He took a deep breath. "Knowing this, do you think that going back at this time is the right plan?"

"I still think he would want to go back home. Hospital rooms all look the same, but having you guys as a care team and just knowing he was safe at home would be beneficial. But you're right, I can see how the trip would be problematic. Is there a ground travel option? I know it would take longer, but is there more freedom to move?"

"Not really. Plus the trip is significantly longer and there are a lot of other outside factors that come into play with ground transport." The doctor took a moment before briefing Mac on the other option. "It's not ideal, but you could have him sedated for the trip."

Mac groaned and pressed his palms to his eyes in frustration. "He'd never agree to that. Not a chance."

"I know. He's not in the appropriate state to make these decisions. You do have final say."

Mac growled and paced back and forth while ranting, "I can't do that to him. He'd never agree to it, and I could never shake the guilt from forcing that on him without his consent."

"You can still think about your options. Nothing would happen until tomorrow morning anyway."

"Ok. Thanks for filling us in." Mac shook the doctor's hand and set off to find his friends who had rejoined Jack in his room.

"Maaaaac." Jack drawled as Mac entered the room. Riley and Bozer were standing on either side of the bed, chatting with a slightly more coherent Jack.

"How are you feeling?" Mac asked him.

"I'm trippin balls, but that's ok because I don't even have to get out of bed to pee. I got this handy dandy little bottle to do it in. Which is good because I'd probably fall on my face if I tried to get up. And I'm pissin' like every hour even though I haven't had anything to drink. Hey Mac, you 'member that one time we were so stumblin ass drunk in your kitchen that we couldn't walk to the bathroom? And I wanted to crawl outside and piss off the side of the deck and you said no 'cuz I'd fall off and just to go in the kitchen sink."

Mac tried to stop the ramble, "I thought we were going to keep that story between us."

Jack thought he was whispering to Bozer, but his volume hadn't changed, "but I told him you would be pissed if we did that." He paused and smiled a sloppy drunk grin. "Pun intended!" Jack put his hand up to high five Bozer and noticed they were both wrapped from his fingers halfway down his forearm. He dropped his hands into his lap with defeat and finished the story. "So Mac here improvised, like he always does, and got like 6 Gatorade bottles out of the fridge and dumped them out in the sink and we used them. Prob'ly woulda been smart to drink the Gatorade instead and maybe we woulda not been so hung over the next mornin'."

Riley was appalled. "Tell me you didn't put the bottles back in the fridge."

Jack shrugged and giggled, "I think you woulda figured that one out pretty quick if we had."

Her face scrunched up in disgust. "Men are so gross."

The door opened before Mac even had time to find a place to sit. The look on the nurse's face was their cue to leave. "Get some rest," Riley stood, kissing him as again on the top of the head and ruffling his hair. "We'll be back soon."

Jack blushed at the affection and attention, then reciprocated Bozer's awaiting fist bump. Mac approached the bed before leaving, "Make sure you do what they say while we're gone." Mac embraced the helicopter parent role reversal. Jack nodded his acknowledgement with the sheepish smile of a disobedient toddler. "I mean it, Jack. I'm going to ask the staff and hold you to it." He tried to be stern yet playful to cover up the fear and anxiety that had plagued him over the last day and a half. He didn't want to leave, but didn't have a choice. "And I better not get any drunk dials from you until you've had a good solid nap. Ok?" Mac wasn't sure how to end the visit, without saying 'goodbye' or making some awkward formal gesture, especially with an outsider watching. Bozer's fistbump seemed natural enough and didn't appear to aggravate anything that was damaged or broken on Jack. Mac extended his fist and was met with a pathetic look of disdain.

Jack stared Mac down for a moment, refusing to return the requested fist bump. "Brothers don't shake hands, brothers gotta hug." Was Jack's excitedly drunken response. Mac looked to the nurse for approval before diving in to Jack's open arms. His grip didn't appear to be compromised by injury or drugs, and Jack held on tightly as Mac relished the moment, soaking in the energy he'd missed. Neither man could hide his smile or relief, each unwilling to release the hug; they held on tightly to each other until Jack relaxed back into his pillows, sound asleep.


	8. The Bruised and the Broken

Back at the Phoenix, it was finally time to get that bullet out of Jack's leg. He'd pleaded for them to just do it with a spinal block so he could be lucid after spending a good portion of the previous week under the influence of many different drugs or confined. Jack was not interested in being knocked out yet again. The Phoenix doctors argued that even if they tried a spinal block instead, Jack would still be confined and literally strapped to a table unable to move or feel his legs, which would be worse.

The exchange made Mac feel worse about having Jack drugged for the flight home. Jack didn't know Mac had him dosed to travel, and the guilt was still eating Mac up inside. He and the rest of the team waited outside of Medical for the very quick and simple bullet extraction.

Mac fiddled with a paperclip, bending it into the shape of a cartoonish looking bone, with the two ends meeting in the the spot where Jack's leg was broken. Riley had said it was morbid, but Mac was pretty sure Jack would find it funny and toss it into his "box o' paperclips." Jack thought he was being sneaky pocketing Mac's discarded metal art when he thought no one was looking, but everyone knew. They weren't sure where he stored his collection, but knew that he was squirreling them away somewhere.

Riley and Bozer occupied the long padded bench that sat in front of the window, back to back, propping one another up. Mac sat alone in a small chair, trying to keep his mind off of the suffocating guilt he was harboring. He felt responsible for the entire situation; had he not made so many enemies in his work, Jack wouldn't have been taken in the first place.

Bozer got up and walked toward the restroom, giving Mac his best supportive but uncomfortable smile as if to say, "hang in there" while he was barely hanging on himself.

The phone buzzing in Mac's pocket drew his attention away from his spiral of guilt, pulling him back to reality, which was not any better. He thought it would be Bozer offering a coffee run or a snack machine binge. It was a message from an unknown number. Mac knew better than to click to reveal the image and text, but he did it anyway.

"I heard about Jacky boy's little accident. I hope he gets better soon. You're no fun when you're brooding." The message was accompanied by a selfie of Murdoc wearing light blue scrubs and a surgical mask and cap. His beady eyes looked menacing, a creepy smile that reached his eyes concealed by the mask. He was wearing black vinyl gloves and giving a thumbs up.

Mac quickly pressed the power button to turn off the screen when the phone buzzed again.

"Praying for a speedy recovery." was the next message with a very similar close up picture of Murdoc, giving the same thumbs up next to a monitor displaying someone's vitals with a rosary draped over the side.

Mac turned off the screen again, thoroughly creeped out. It was a good 90 seconds before the phone buzzed again. "Everyone's so glum. Chin up, buttercup, he's in good hands." the picture was of Riley and Bozer, sitting where they had been until about 3 minutes prior. Mac grabbed the arms of the chair, rotating his torso to survey the room from corner to corner looking for Murdoc, or anyone else at all. The only other person in the room was Riley.

"Bozer!" he called out, afraid yet another of his friends fell prey to his enemies. "Bozer!"

Riley quickly closed her laptop and ran to Mac who was standing up and turning frantically trying to locate his best friend.

"Mac," she grabbed his shoulder and forearm, "he went to the bathroom. What's wrong?"

"It's Murdoc." he replied and her blood went cold. "BOZER!" he yelled again and his friend rounded the corner, out of breath from running toward his name being called.

"Mac, what's wrong. Is Jack ok? What's going on?" his sentences spewed out in one breath as he went to Mac's other side and tried to ground him with a caring touch.

"Murdoc is here." Mac's eyes were wide with fear, his phone buzzing from the chair where he'd left it.

The final message said, "The old fuddyduddy wouldn't even smile for the camera," accompanied by a picture of Murdoc in the operating room with an intubated Jack with his eyes taped closed. Murdoc's black gloved hand was gripping Jack's jaw to turn his face toward the camera with Murdoc's smiling face looming right next to Jack's.

"NO!" Mac's pained primal scream shook Bozer to the core.

When Mac opened his eyes his t-shirt and sweatpants were drenched, and he was breathing heavily, sitting up in the bed in the hotel, still in Reno. Only a nightmare.

"Mac!" Bozer tried to get his attention repeatedly from the other bed in the room, but Mac was in full panic mode. "Mac!" he no longer cared how loud he yelled to get his friend's attention back to the present, Mac's screaming most definitely woke everyone in the neighboring hotel rooms. There was no doubt Riley would run through their adjoining door any moment.

Mac hopped out of the bed and ran out the door without even putting shoes on. He ran as fast as he could in his socks and bedclothes without considering stopping until he ran the mile and a half to the hospital.

Mac bounded up the stairs, two at a time, into the ICU, gripping the high counter at the nurses's station to stop his momentum and keep his socks from slipping on the glossy off-white floor. He glanced into the empty room that previously housed Jack only hours before. "Where is Jack?" Mac panted, out of breath, eyes wild with fear. The nurse at the desk was about to press the panic button to notify security.

One of the nurses recognized Mac from the night before and approached him tentatively. "Hey, I can help you. Just take a deep breath." She waved off her colleague before security was summoned, and mouthed "call him" while pointing toward a post it note recently pinned behind the desk with a phone number and only the word "McClain" written on it.

"Jack." was all Mac could manage to say.

"He was moved to another room earlier." she spoke softly and slowly, daring to place a hand on his shoulder. "Come with me and I can take you there." She slid her hand down to his bicep and guided him with another hand on the small of his back. "Your name was Mac, right?"

He nodded wordlessly, eyes darting around like a scared wild animal.

"Ok then, Mac, I need you to get this under control so we can go see your friend."

Her words only increased his panic as he breathed harder, nostrils flaring with each breath.

"I can't let you see him until you're cool. Ok?" she stopped walking and stepped in front of him to face him. "You don't want him to see you like this, do you? He'll be worried, and you don't want that, do you? Come on, reel it in." She placed both hands on his shoulders in an attempt to physically and mentally ground him. Her big brown eyes were soft, maternal. She rubbed up and down his biceps in time with his breathing and then slowing to coax some relief into him. "There you go. Good job. Now we're ready. Let's go."

They reached Jack's room and the lights were dimmed, he was sleeping soundly. Mac was so relieved just to lay eyes on him, he approached the bed quickly and the nurse stayed in the doorway. Mac gripped the bed rails, resisting the urge to reach out and touch him. He needed that reassurance, that contact, just to ease his mind. His hand hovered over Jack's bicep, reluctant to touch him, to disturb him, but he gave in and gingerly placed his palm on Jack's arm. Relief washed over Mac like he'd never felt before, surprised that a nightmare, a figment of his imagination had him so spun up.

Jack must have sensed the tension and blearily opened his eyes. His smile crept up immediately upon recognition of his brother. Jack's voice was sluggish and gentle, "hey, man. What's up? You ok?" He clumsily felt along the side of the bed for the light dimmer to bring up the lights. He looked at Mac's face, sweaty and pale, and was immediately concerned. He moved his bandaged hand up to cup Mac's cheek, "what's the matter?"

Mac's face twisted in a mix of every emotion, with a giant tear rolling down his cheek, catching on his top lip.

"What happened? Are you ok?" Jack put his hand on the back of Mac's neck and pulled him in close. After a few moments of Mac's breath hitching, Jack placed his hands on Mac's cheeks and guided him back up to look into his eyes. "Hey, I know you're in a bad place right now. I've seen you like this before." Mac rolled his lips in over his teeth and nodded.

Jack scooted over to one side of the bed to make room, concealing any sign of the pain the movement caused him, and patted the empty space. "Come here." Mac hesitated and pulled one leg and his bottom onto the bed.

"All the way, man. I don't bite." Jack joked and moved over a little more, raising his arm up to tuck Mac under his shoulder. Upon seeing Mac's sweatpants and dirty socks as he pulled himself the rest of the way onto the bed, Jack had to ask, "Did you walk here? In your socks? And pajamas?"

"Yeah," Mac managed to croak out.

"You thought I wouldn't be here?" Jack realized.

"Kinda. Yeah."

"Boy, you gotta stop letting those intrusive thoughts drive you. I'm here. I'm always here."

"I know, but...you died, and it was my fault."

"That's bullshit and you know it. Besides, I'm your T-800 Terminator, sent from the future to protect you. You can't kill me."

"I know. I just...I can't...it's...I put everyone I love in danger. I can't help it."

"You gotta let this go, man. You can't live like that, you'll make yourself nuts. You keep getting lost in that big brain of yours."

"I know."

Jack mussed Mac's already unkempt hair, the sweat making it even more of a mess. Jack stealthily pressed the button on the PCA pump, not wanting Mac to see that he was in more pain as a result of his repositioning. "We gotta get you some of the good drugs. Mellow you out. We can trip and watch Yellow Submarine together." Jack pulled Mac in tighter to his chest, ignoring the stabbing pain that came along with it, involuntarily sucking in a quick breath and playing it off, "on second thought, that one is pretty trippy even when your're not on drugs."

Mac's head was tucked into Jack's shoulder. His breathing finally evened out, he wasn't asleep, but he was relaxed. He felt safe and anchored.

Dr. McClain appeared in the doorway with Riley and Bozer right behind him. Jack looked their way and waved them off, disguising that movement as an attempt to find the light dimmer. Jack turned down the lights and asked Mac one last time, "You ok?"

"Yeah." was Mac's whispered response.

"Ok then. I'm gonna get some sleep, bud. You stay here as long as you need to, ok?"

"Ok. Thank you, Jack."

Jack managed to sleep hard through the night thanks to the drugs and the comfort of having Mac with him. Mac woke early, embarrassed about the panicked state he had been in earlier. He detached himself from Jack's side and snuck to the bathroom where he found his duffel bag with a note on top, "thought you may need your shoes. Call me if you need anything." Followed by a smiley face and Bozer's practiced signature.

Mac's cheeks blushed red, did everyone see him freak out and run like a lunatic? His nightmare had been as realistic and traumatizing as the ones he had when they'd returned from the sandbox, but it had been a while since he'd experienced one so unnerving. He splashed water from the sink onto his face and tried to slick down his wild hair.

While changing into his regular clothes, Mac heard Jack have a coughing fit. He fastened his jeans and slid his t-shirt over his head hastily to check on his friend.

Jack hacked and coughed and spit out whatever had come up, deflating back into his pillow, panting. The click of a door opening drew Jack's attention. "Hey," Jack smiled when Mac emerged from the bathroom. He continued groggily, "I didn't know you were still here."

"Yeah, just getting dressed." Mac said timidly, unsure why he felt so awkward.

"You better now?"

"Yeah, thanks. Sorry about that."

"You' got nothing to be sorry for, boy. Did you do anything I wouldn't or haven't done?" Mac shook his head. "Ok, then." Jack paused, "now go find something to eat. You look like you lost 10 pounds since last time I saw you." Jack shifted his legs and shimmied into a more seated position, "ok?"

"Ok." Mac sounded like a defeated child.

"Go check on your sister, make sure she's eating too. I'm good. They'll take care of me here, but I need you to take care of each other while I cant. You copy?"

"I copy." Mac flashed a shy smile.

"I don't want to see you again till after lunch, now shoo." As much as Jack relied on Mac's presence to ground and strengthen, he was having difficulty keeping up a strong front. He needed some time to break down without worrying his family.

Everything hurt. The morphine had worn off, so his head was clearer and he tried to piece together what had happened. He looked at his hands, wrapped excessively from well below his wrists to his knuckles. The raw skin covered by the bandages stung and still felt wet. They'd also stuck metal stabilizers between the layers of the wrap, then he remembered breaking his wrists to escape.

But he hadn't escaped. He was rescued. Wasn't he? Mac and Riley were there. Were they caught too? He remembered a box and darkness. Why was there a box? Nothing felt like it was coming together in his mind, and his head throbbed along with his pulse. He didn't want more drugs because he wanted to remember, but his joints hurt and his muscles burned.

He looked down at the extensive bruising along his ribs and the center of his chest, the movement causing a tickle in his throat that set off another set of deep painful coughs.

He adjusted the bed to roll onto his belly to be hit by a new set of aches and pains before he resigned to accept the drugs and drift back to sleep for a couple hours.

Riley, Mac, and Bozer were hanging out in Jack's room, silently attentive to their respective phones, as ordered by the staff, when Jack grumbled something unintelligible. He was on his side facing them, curled into a tight ball under a pile of blankets.

Riley shoved her phone into her pocket and approached him. "What was that, Jack?" She asked sweetly.

He pulled a blanket tighter to his neck and spoke louder but still thick from sleep, "I said my ASS is cold."

"Sorry," she apologized, finding the tiny space in his blanket nest letting the draft in and tucking it closed. She couldn't hide the pity on her face seeing her larger than life Delta dad reduced to a helpless pouty mess tangled up in a mound of blankets and wires. She'd never seen him this vulnerable before, and it hurt.

"Why don't you sit up and have something to drink." She encouraged. But he pulled a sheet all the way over his head with a grunt. She vigorously shook a plastic cup with a foil lid and continued in a sing song voice, "I have apple juice." He grunted again.

Bozer whispered to Mac, "I thought you said he wanted to see us."

"He was in a good mood earlier. Sorry." Mac apologized.

Riley tried again, "please. I promise this sugar will make you feel better." No response. "If you're not gonna do it for you, do it for me." She felt bad about trying to guilt trip him, but if it worked it was worth it.

He peeked out of the blanket and slowly dragged it to his chin, giving her the stink eye for even using herself as leverage. She couldn't help but smile at his furrowed brows, comically enhanced by his pitiful situation. She ruffled his hair and offered him a hand up.

He refused her help and argued, "I can sit up myself, I ain't broken."

The other 3 people in the room visibly disagreed, but didn't dare say a word. He braced himself with the bed rails and used all his power to roll to his back, pull his knees up, and get the bed inclined to a sitting position. He held the blanket tightly to his neck and pouted the entire time.

She tried to get him to lower the blanket, but he refused. "I'm naked under here." He griped.

Riley pierced the foil lid with a straw put it to his lips. Jack reluctantly took a sip and made a sour face that quickly turned to approval. He sucked down half of the cup before she stopped him.

"Take it easy." She pulled the cup away and he scowled. "You wanna watch tv?" She asked, remote already in hand, not waiting for an answer. She flipped through the small selection of available channels, not satisfied with anything she found.

Jack was obviously feeling better soon after and snaked his arm out of his cocoon to grab the juice when no one was looking. He even lowered the blanket to just below his shoulders and smiled when the TV landed on a channel playing Scooby Doo.

"We're going home today," Mac started and Jack flashed him a look of betrayal. "All of us," Mac corrected, "all of us are going home today... but Doc wants you to be sedated for the ride."

"We'd be with you the whole time," Riley tried to soften the blow.

"I hear your words but I don't get what you're saying." Jack tilted his head like a confused puppy.

"On the plane…" Mac stalled, "you...they…" he stuttered and then spit the rest of the sentence in one exhale, "you have to be strapped down to the gurney for the flight, and everyone feels like that would be detrimental to your mental health."

He licked his lips, thinking. "Ok. I see." He was apprehensive and still hadn't agreed.

Mac sighed and sagged in his chair. "We were going to do it anyway, without telling you, and I...I couldn't go through with it. I couldn't do that to you."

Jack blinked, looking at Mac, still without saying anything.

"Come on man, say something. Yell at me for even considering it." Mac pleaded.

"So you were going to do like the A-Team where B.A. is afraid to fly, so they drug his milk and drag him along. Is that what you're telling me?"

"Yeah, basically, but you have an IV, it's not that hard. Nurses are shooting stuff into that thing every two hours. You'd probably never even have known."

"Ok." Jack said with no expression on his face to read.

"Ok? What does that mean? Is that you giving consent to be drugged up for the flight home?" Mac tried not to let his frustration from his compounded guilt show.

Jack manipulated his eyebrows into a straight line, giving a stern look. "Yes." Riley and Mac let out a sigh of relief. "BUT only if you promise not to draw whiskers or devil horns or a dick on my face with a Sharpie."

Riley countered, "how about if we promise TO do that?"

"Even better." Jack agreed.

Riley added to her proposition, "And we'll sing karaoke, all of your favorite songs, and you'll be right there in the middle of it and you will never know it happened."

A knowing grin crept onto Jack's face, "Joke's on you, I'm smelling pretty ripe right now. Y'all are the ones gonna be stuck in close quarters with my gamey ass, I'll be sleepin'. My nose is broken and I can still smell me. I was gonna ask if they'd let me hop in the shower today, but now I think I'll stink out of spite."

Riley compromised, "maybe you should still work on that shower thing, and maybe we'll surprise you and not knock you out for the ride."

After dinner, the bed was lowered as far as it would go, and Jack dangled his legs over the side and braced himself for the exertion and pain he was about to endure. He knew it would be worth it, and he needed to get up and around anyway. Having his kids there to help was good, though he didn't like them to see him this helpless. The nurses had removed all of the bandages, disconnected all wires and tubes, and wrapped the IV port and the bullet hole in cellophane for the shower, leaving him in a pair of boxer shorts. Jack wasn't even sure where the underwear came from, but he was grateful for them regardless.

It was invigorating to Jack to be free of wires and bandages and braces, even if only for a short time. He wasn't enjoying the feeling of the tight cellophane, but he had no say in that. The cold air hitting the raw skin of his wrists stung, but was refreshing. His mind was clear as most of the drugs had run their course, leaving him with only ibuprofen to shield him from the pain. He felt like he was covered with a layer of filth, and could not wait to stand under a stream of hot water.

Mac and Riley stood on either side of him and each shouldered an arm to help Jack balance without putting too much weight on his leg. His shoulders screamed at the movement and his wrists weren't much better, but they trekked the 8 steps...more like slow shuffles across the room.

Mac hooked the leg of a shower stool with his foot and slid it into the shower as Riley turned the water on, both kids bearing his weight without any sign of struggle. Riley periodically checked the water temperature with her hand until it was suitable for Jack to sit in.

He tried not to be embarrassed, usually filling the silence cracking silly jokes, but the water felt so good on his neck and down his back, he stopped talking and relished in it. He wasn't sure how long he sat there in silence or what his kids were doing standing around awkwardly while he let the warm water wash over him. Jack slowly craned his neck upward to wet his hair, the movement and subsequent deep inhale triggered another coughing fit. All eyes were focused back on Jack as he gripped the bar in the shower stall and hacked and sputtered. When he finally stopped, his arm fell limply from the handrail and his chin dropped to his chest as he tipped forward. Mac stopped Jack's fall with an extended arm, not caring if he got soaked.

"Jack!" Riley yelled, not realizing how loud it was in the small room.

Mac stepped into the oversized shower stall to sit his friend back back up. He gripped Jack by the shoulders, giving him a gentle shake. "Hey Jack. Time to get out of here."

Jack slowly raised his head, eyelids fluttering open as he tried to orient himself. "Nah, man. I'm good. Just went a little deep with that cough. I got this."

"No way. You just passed out." Riley objected.

"Just for a second though. And I promise, I'm good." Jack argued gently. "Besides, my underwear's already soaked, might as well get clean since I have to change clothes."

Mac grabbed a bottle from his own bag on the bathroom counter and pumped the foam into Jack's hand so he could wash. The effort of putting his arms up to his hair was painful and came with an unintentional grunt.

"I can get that for you." Riley offered as she got some more soap from Mac without waiting for Jack to back down. She gently put her fingers through his hair and massaged lightly with her nails, hoping that his head wasn't throbbing too much from the concussion. He moaned quietly and relaxed into her hands, eyes closed for a long minute. "I'm gonna stop before you start shaking your leg like a dog."

Jack frowned with a disappointed whimper and snatched the bottle of soap from Mac and yanked the shower curtain closed like a petulant child. The pain of the movements took his breath away momentarily, but he immediately regained his composure when Mac jerked the curtain back open.

"Nope." Mac touted. "We promised the nurse we'd keep an eye on you."

"What am I gonna do? Escape?" He held his sudsy arms out to demonstrate how much of a threat he wasn't. "Ain't nobody at this rodeo paid to watch a greased pig contest."

"Jack." Mac sighed and his shoulders sagged, "you passed out like three minutes ago, we're not taking our eyes off you."

Jack sulked and pumped more soap onto his hands and washed his chest to exert his independence. As he washed his legs he pleaded while thumbing the waistband of his soaked shorts, "can I at least wash my private parts with some privacy?"

"Ew, ok, but please say something if you need help." Riley told him as she closed the curtain. As her hand crossed in front of her face she got a whiff of the soap Mac had brought. "What's that scent in your soap. It's not like anything I've smelled before."

"I don't know, I just grabbed something off the shelf at the store." Mac lied.

"It's nice." She smelled the back of her hand again. "Pleasant smell, not greasy, not drying. What is it?"

"I really don't remember. I just grabbed something for traveling because it has a foam pumper so you get a good lather regardless of how hard the water is wherever you go."

"That makes sense. Do they make it in a sweeter floral smell, like something slightly girlier?"

Mac shrugged, hoping she'd stop asking questions. "Jack, you still ok in there?" He spoke loudly over the water.

"Yep!" Jack hollered back. "Just washing my bits and pieces with your," Jack paused, no doubt reading the label on the bottle, his voice pitched slow and teasing and clearly amused using his embarrass Mac voice as he continued, "baby shampoo plus body wash."

Mac blushed and Jack could sense it from inside the shower. Like the patronizing big brother he was, Jack waited until Mac either explained scientific reasons to back up his use of baby shampoo or changed the subject altogether.

"Jack?" Mac called, an obvious subject change to quell his awkwardness. "You you going to shave too?"

He pondered for a moment. The beard growth itch was obnoxious, and with so many other cuts, stitches, tape, bandages, and other sticky things constantly touching his skin, he didn't want to add a scratchy beard to the stimuli. On the other hand, the itch may draw some attention away from the constant ache and pains from the 75% of his body that was injured. He was also exhausted, painfully so. Taking a shower may as well have been the same effort as running a marathon. "Nah. I think I'm all finished though. Where's my towel? I ditched those wet drawers."

Jack shut off the water and an arm holding a towel swung in front of his face. He was stuck just patting the water away in most places due to all of the broken skin and made quick work of it due to the pain of most of the movements. Jack grabbed the bar in the shower and used it to press himself into a standing position, grunting out loud at the pressure it put on his sprained wrist. He balanced mostly on one leg and wrapped the towel around his waist, tucking one corner to secure it for the trip back to the bed. He yanked the curtain open triumphantly, hoping his partners didn't notice how worn out the whole ordeal had made him.

"Your feet are still wet, you're gonna slip, Jack." Riley was sympathetic. She grabbed another towel and patted his calves and feet dry before placing the towel on the ground. "Now step. Get the bottoms dry too." She put her arm out inviting him to latch onto her shoulder so she could support him. Mac ducked under the other arm and they began their return trip to the bed. This time it wasn't as difficult since he'd been up and moving, but it was draining as he was on his last ounce of energy. He wasn't sure he could take another step once they'd finally reached the bed.

"Hey, someone brought you some scrub pants. Now you don't have to make the flight home naked." Mac joked as he grabbed the blue pants from the foot of the bed and unfurled them as he walked back to where Jack was sitting on the edge of the bed.

"I can put on my own pants." Jack huffed.

"I know you can, but if I let you, the nurse walking in the door right now would be pissed if you fell face first out of that bed. It would be my fault." Mac explained as the entering nurse nodded in agreement. She quickly dropped off a handful of items and left again. "Come on," Mac bent down and shook them open, "feet."

Jack snarled and complied, then grabbed the waistband once Mac pulled them up over his knees. He used every bit of strength he had left to pivot his hips and swing his legs back up onto the bed, lifting his hips in one swift move to pull the pants the rest of the way on underneath the towel...most of the rest of the way on. He'd only managed to pull them halfway over his butt, but no one needed to know that.

He flashed a satisfied smirk at them and grabbed the cup on the table for a drink of water, touting his false independence to reassure the others. Riley gathered the fresh blanket at the foot of the bed and pulled it up to his chest.

"It's so cold in here, you're going to freeze to death." Riley explained. He was admittedly very cold and pulled the blanket up to his neck, snuggling into the pillows on the reclined bed. Within seconds he was snoring quietly.

The nurse returned and began to hook Jack back up to everything for his flight back home. He didn't even stir when she lowered the head of the bed to flat, he was completely spent from the shower. She attached the IV tubing to a saline drip and injected a few syringes into the port, followed by cardiac leads, a pulse oximeter, and blood pressure cuff. She fitted the oxygen mask over his face and secured the elastic gently behind his head.

Riley's eyebrows drew together with concern as she stood from her chair and slowly approached the bed. "I thought…"

"His O2 sat has been dropping since this morning, so this should help with that. But I'm also about to check blood as well just to make sure. It should be ok. With the pneumonia and all the activity today, it wasn't unexpected."

"Oh." Riley grimaced, not convinced that this was not as bad as she felt it was.

The nurse sensed her distress and tried to reassure her with a smile as she finished drawing blood from the crook of his elbow and applied pressure with a piece of gauze for a moment. Riley ruffled his still damp hair and looked to Mac for reassurance.

"See," the nurse pointed to one of the monitors, "better already. The transport guys should be here soon to get him packaged up for transfer."

Jack became aware of his body very quickly when he began to wake. He swatted the oxygen mask away from his face and attempted to sit up with a grunt.

"Slow down, cowboy. You're gonna bust your face when fall ass over teakettle out of that bed." The nurse told Jack, her back to him as she continued to input data into her tablet.

He took a second to adjust to his surroundings and take in where he was, the black scrubs, black sleeves that hooked around her pale thumbs, and a dark tight bun confirmed his suspicions. "Oh, it's you. I must have died and gone to hell."

"Damn straight." she turned her head to flash what was a mix between a grin and a smirk before turning back to her work.

He shifted his hips to try to ease his discomfort. "Gotta piss."

She tucked the tablet under her armpit and slid her dark framed glasses to the top of her head. She retrieved a bottle from a cabinet and handed it to Jack. He took no time moving to relieve himself.

"I was going to offer to excuse myself so you could have some privacy, but there you go." She raised an eyebrow.

"You're a quote unquote professional, I'm sure you've seen bodily functions before." Jack panted as he relieved himself.

"I guess you're right. I've seen you from the outside and inside." She remarked as she turned the screen toward him and swiped through pictures, "see, lots of new ones from this week. This is your brain, here's your lungs, oh and this is your heart, but from the inside out."

"How'd they manage that?"

"It's pretty unpleasant. Be glad you don't remember. I imagine you punched a few people trying to shove shit down your throat."

Jack shuddered. "Where's Mac?"

She looked at her watch. "A new record!" She feigned excitement. "You made it about 138 seconds before asking about your missing limb." She went back to her deadpan voice. "I sent him home. He looks almost as shitty as you do right now. Didn't want him falling out because then I'd feel compelled to pick him up off the ground and probably hurt my back, and they don't have a checkbox on the worker's comp forms for 'picking up a dumbass'."

"You're a real peach, you know that?"

"Yep. As hard and abrasive as the pit. Thanks." She snickered as she slid her glasses back down and continued to transfer records and stats from Reno into their own database. "Now that you're awake, which pained frowny face looks most like Jack right now?" She glanced back and forth between the pain scale and Jack's face.

"Nice glasses. Your coven of old hags not know a spell to correct vision problems yet?" Jack joked in a tired and gravelly voice.

"Shut it, old man. I see here that you also suffer from age related presbyopia." She tapped the chart with her tablet, "Now look, I drew eyebrows on this pain scale chart to make it more relatable to you and match your cro-magnon brow. Now tell me which one is you so I can put it in here and not have to look at that pile of rotting ground beef you call a face anymore."

"Why are you such a bitch? Is it because your parents had to tie a string of pork chops around your neck and starve the family dog just to get him to come near you."

"Nice to see the concussion didn't damage the part of your brain that makes you an asshole."

"Eight." Jack groaned.

"No shit? Really? That bad?" She almost felt bad for being so playfully nasty to him. If she were nice to him though, it would look suspicious. "I know you're not a fan of the strong stuff because it might dull your sense of stupid or something. You want...ibuprofen?"

"I'll take the good stuff." He closed his eyes and clutched his ribs in preparation for a cough. She raised the head of the bed and handed him a pillow to hug while he coughed.

"Good thing. Boss lady told me to holler at her when your ass wakes up. At least now you'll be trippin' balls when she comes to visit and you'll have an excuse for the dumb shit that comes out of your mouth."

He let out a snicker that opened the floodgates that were holding the cough in. He bent forward and hacked and coughed. She rubbed his back as he heaved and gagged. He leaned back onto the bed when he finished, huffing and panting between words. "I didn't know (gasp) your talons (gasp) could be so gentle."

"Congratulations, I didn't know a horse's ass could talk." She grabbed the oxygen cannula from next to the bed and put it on Jack, looping it around his ears. "And you better leave this on or I'll get creative with duct tape like your boy does." Nurse Austin threatened as she left the room and let the door shut gently behind her.

Jack closed his eyes and focused on his breathing to get it under control. No sooner than his breathing finally almost evened out, Matty walked in the door.

She greeted him with a warm smile. "Hey, Dalton. It's nice to finally see you with your eyes open."

"That bad, huh?" He asked, "even Audrey was nice to me for a second."

"Audrey as in Austin? The mean nurse?" Matty asked, floored when Jack confirmed. "That's impressive. Either she's going soft or you're looking pretty pathetic." He made a pouty face, which wasn't that much different than his normal face at that point. "I even had one of the best Beverly Hills plastic surgeons on standby in case your nose needed to be repaired."

"That is the sweetest thing you've ever done for me." Jack pretended to blink away tears.

"Well I need Jack Dalton, not Frank Castle."

Jack balked in astonishment. "Director Webber, did you just make a comic book reference?" Her response was a wide grin, interrupted by a single knock and the door opening.

"Nurse Austin," Matty greeted with sweetness dripping from her words, "I thought vampires had to be invited in."

"Good one, sir." The stern faced nurse cracked a one sided smile and offered Matty a fist bump that was reciprocated. She dropped the folded blanket she was carrying on top of Jack's feet and circled the bed.

She injected the medication into the IV and held the button flatten the bed. "Push the two way button if you need anything, but just know that if you interrupt my telenovelas with something asinine, I will only communicate with you using Snoop Dogg lyrics." She unfolded the blanket that had been warmed and covered him up to his shoulders. He exhaled with a sigh of overwhelming comfort. Jack was ready to go back to sleep already.

At the door to leave she gave nod to Matty and pointed to Jack as she exited, "Enjoy your nap you inbred knuckle fuck."

Matty shook her head, amused, "none of those words go together at all, but that was masterful."

"It's the delivery." Jack yawned and rolled to his side. "Matty," he looked directly at her, his eyes pleading, "what happened?" She gave him a sympathetic look for a long moment, not breaking eye contact. "I don't remember much of anything, and I couldn't ask Mac, not after...was that today? Or yesterday? I don't even know what day it is. I only know I'm at the Phoenix because the rooms are nicer and I know that angry little nurse can't actually spend more than half an hour traveling because of ptsd. But I wasn't here last time I went to sleep. I'm just...I don't...it's like some kind of weird Leo DiCaprio movie."

"Like Inception or Revenant?"

"Both. And it's…" the drugs started to make him sluggish. He blinked hard to attempt to focus as a tear rolled down across the bridge of his nose. He struggled to remember what he was going to say and became more upset.

Matty placed her palm on his cheek with a maternal fondness. "Rest, Jack. We're still putting all the pieces together, but I'll make sure to let you know once we know."

Riley watched Jack squirm and whimper for the third time in five minutes. The blanket covering his bare chest had been flung off in a sleep fit exposing the excessive damage to his sternum and ribcage; the sickly yellow and dark purple bruising a stark contrast to the white cardiac leads still monitoring his heart. "Mac, I want to wake him up." She looked to her brother for approval. When Mac gave a noncommittal answer, she pleaded, "he's like a little puppy having a nightmare." She pondered another moment, "screw it, I'm waking him up."

Riley tentatively placed her hand in Jack's hair and brushed it back a few times calling his name softly. His breathing quickened and his legs kicked out weakly; his eyes shot open as he grabbed her wrist in a death grip despite his wrapped hands and broken thumb.

"Jack!" Riley gasped and tried to step back and pull away from his grip. "It's me. It's me! Jack!" He was panting, dark eyes wild when they met hers. Once recognition finally hit, he released her and apologized repeatedly under his breath, repeating it like a mantra. She tried to reassure him, "it's ok, Jack. You're ok." He grabbed her arm again, still quietly repeating his 'I'm sorry' as he pulled her down to into an embrace.

He pressed her cheek into his chest and kissed the top of her head still repeating, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Oh God, I'm so sorry." He brushed her hair with his hand and kissed the top of her head again squeezing her tight.

"It's ok, Jack. You didn't hurt me." Riley sounded apologetic for waking him.

He was almost in tears, "I was going to."

"But you didn't. You knew it was me, you were just spooked." She put her hand in his hair again, and he leaned into it. "See, just me." She moved her hand back and forth soothingly.

Mac was ready to break the uncomfortable tension in the room. "We brought you something to eat, big guy. From your favorite barbeque place." Mac reached into a brown paper bag that was sitting on a countertop.

Jack hadn't even noticed Mac was in the room until he'd spoken. "You flew all the way to Texas just to get food for me?" Jack joked, eyes brighter and excited.

"Your favorite local barbecue place. We even got you a gigantic sweet tea." Mac held up a ridiculously large white styrofoam cup.

"Awesome. I'm starving." Jack scooted himself up and raised the head of the bed while Riley pushed the bed tray over his lap. He opened the carryout container as Mac put a straw into the cup for him. "Is this a kids meal? There's like no food here."

"Nurse Austin told us to tell you that we had to pay the bridge troll half of your dinner as a toll." Riley confessed. "But I think it's actually because you haven't eaten in a couple of days and she didn't want you to get sick." Jack made a lopsided smile followed by a chuckle. "What's her deal? How can she be that horrible and still have a job?"

"Long story short?" Jack continued without waiting for an answer, "She was a medic on the TAC team until a helicopter accident about 7 years ago. They won't clear her for field work so DXS put her through nursing school to stay with the agency. They don't wanna waste that high of a security clearance by getting rid of her, plus no one complains." He shrugged and awkwardly shoveled a fork full of pulled pork, unable to get his normal grip with the wrist brace. "Oh wow. Even at room temperature, it's so good." He tried to exclaim around the food in his mouth and tucked it into one cheek. "How long you been sitting here with this?" He swallowed painfully and chased it with a gulp of tea.

"About an hour." Mac looked at his watch.

"I don't even know what day it is. Or how much time has passed. It's kinda surreal. How long have we been back in LA?" Jack asked as he took another bite hoping his kids didn't notice how stiff his movements were.

Mac shrugged, "Twelve hours, give or take. The nurse said you were asleep for about five hours after we landed and then another 6 after that."

"Shit. That's like Garfield level lazy."

Riley chimed in, "and I hope that's what you're in store for tomorrow too. You've been through a lot. You need to rest."

"I ain't complainin'," Jack put his fork down after the third bite, exhausted from the effort and feeling sick from the reintroduction of delicious greasy food into his body. "It's like that time in college me and all my roommates got mono."

Mac sensed he was finished eating and closed the take-out box and removed it from the tray as he spoke, "I'm going to stop you right there before your drug addled brain over-shares that particular story that neither of us need to hear." Jack's response was a stifled giggle and a light stretch, rounding out his back up to his shoulders until he was more relaxed and comfortable. "We'll just get out of your hair." Mac announced, not really wanting to leave.

"Nah. Hang out. We can watch tv." Jack told them wanting the comfort of their presence.

The words were music to Riley's ears. She propped her feet up near the foot of Jack's bed, seated in a chair right next to him. She grabbed the remote, thankful that TV in Phoenix medical wasn't typical hospital standard issue. They were interrupted by a scheduled check in.

Nurse Audrey breached the doorway with her usual smug smirk as she approached the side of the bed where Mac was seated, "Sup, Jackass."

Jack's response was quick. "That's real original. You getting your material from the schoolyard now?"

She ignored his remark and asked and pointed to the chart with comically drawn eyebrows, "How's your pain?"

"Four." He lied.

She pulled a disapproving face which was only slightly different than her normal scowl. "Same stuff as before?" She asked, aware he was downplaying his pain in the presence of the other two agents. He nodded his affirmation. "Up on your side. Gotta check this road rash again, you've been on it too long."

He rolled over, holding his breath to brace for the pain and exertion it would take. He settled on his side to face Riley and met her eyes with a genuine smile. She couldn't help but smile back, and sat up straight in her chair to put his hand between hers.

The nurse uncovered and inspected the abrasions up his back and shoulder, the blood had seeped through the pad and to the sheets. "You gonna cry like a baby if I put a stitch in a couple of these spots? They're just...oozing...still."

"I couldn't deny you the opportunity to inflict pain, now could I?"

"You're not as dumb as you look." She told him, squeezing his bicep in a surprisingly comforting move. "I'll be back in a few. Don't move." She walked toward the door and stopped on the way out, "lidocaine or no?"

"Let's just get it over with." Jack groaned in defeat.

Riley rubbed his hand reassuringly and flashed a look of pity when their eyes met again. He didn't like her seeing him that way or feeling sorry for him, so he averted his eyes to their intertwined hands.

"Nice ring." He grinned at his oversized ring sitting on her middle finger.

"I stole it off some old man. Didn't think he'd miss it."

Meanwhile, Mac on the other side of the bed tried to not look at the damage to Jack's back. The image of Jack being dragged across the floor was burned into his brain.

After a several minutes and a coughing fit later, Audrey came back in with her "basket of goodies" and started with the pain relief. She dawdled a bit, pretending to update information in a tablet to give the drugs some time to work before beginning.

"I'm glad you're home." Riley told him quietly, as if they were having a private conversation. "I was really worried about you."

"You know you don't have to worry about your Terminator. Until I fall into a vat of molten lava, you can count on me to come back." He blinked, confused. "Shit, that was supposed to come out different."

"I didn't miss your Arnold impersonation, I get what you're trying to say." She put her fingers through the front of his hair, and he responded with a chuckle and a dopey smile.

The nurse set up her things and started to clean the wounds. She kicked Mac in the foot with her shoe, "go wash your hands."

A bit stunned by the request, or demand, he did as he was told and sat back down quickly. Mac asked timidly, "do I need gloves?"

"Hell no." She traced an old jagged scar on Jack's side with a gloved finger. "I take it this is your handiwork?"

Mac wanted to explain that it was in the field without any proper equipment or even a first aid kit, but he was pretty sure she already knew and was just giving him a hard time. He nodded.

"So we will leave this to the professionals and let the nerdy kid do his work in the field." She grabbed his hand by the wrist and placed it on Jack's side just above his waist. "Don't let him roll over on me."

While Mac knew this was a valid request, he didn't think it was purely a defensive move and more for Jack's own comfort. She'd noticed Mac's attempt to distance himself from the situation, and forced him to come to terms with that quickly. He gave Jack a light squeeze to let him know he was there. Jack put his hand on top of Mac's and was scolded by Audrey like a puppy when his elbow came up into her work area. "No, sir. Down."

Riley guided Jack's hand back into her own and held it gently. He didn't even flinch when she started stitching, and dozed off quickly, surrounded and comforted by his kids.


End file.
